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Purchased  by  the 

Mrs.  Robert  Lenox  Kennedy  Church  History  Fund 


BR  145  .G99 

Gwatkin,  Henry  Melvill,  18^ 

-1916, 
The  church,  past  and  presei 


THE     CHURCH 

PAST    AND    PRESENT 


TH  E    CHURCH 


PAST    AND    PRESENT 


A  REVIEW  OF  ITS  HISTORY 


THE    BISHOP    OF    LONDON,    BISHOP    BARRY, 
AND  OTHER  WRITERS 


EDITED   BY   THE 

REV.    H.    M.    GWATKIN,    M.A. 

DIXIE   PROFESSOR  OF   ECCLESIASTICAL   HISTORY    IN   THE   UNIVERSITY 
OF  CAMBRIDGE;      D.D.    OF   EDINBURGH 


NEW    YORK 

THOMAS     WHITTAKER 

2  &  3  BIBLE  HOUSE 


PREFACE 

We  write  not  as  advocates  of  this  or  that  party  in 
Church  or  State,  but  as  students  who  are  persuaded 
that  history  as  well  as  science  is  the  message  of  the 
Spirit  to  our  own  time.  Our  bond  of  union  is  the  con- 
viction that  our  Saviour's  Person  is  itself  the  revelation, 
of  which  Scripture  and  the  Church  are  only  the  record 
and  the  witness;  but  that  His  Holy  Spirit  is  the  Teacher 
of  all  ages,  revealing  more  and  more  of  Christ  as  men 
can  bear  it — to  nations  in  history,  to  individuals  in  life. 
We  believe  that  Spirit  speaks  in  the  creative  thought 
and  work  of  every  age — in  Origen  and  Athanasius,  in 
Augustine  and  Gregory  VII.,  in  the  reformers  and  the 
authors  of  our  own  Liturgy  and  Articles,  and  in  the 
great  discoveries  of  history  and  science  in  our  own 
time.  We  are  the  heirs  of  all  the  ages,  and  we  claim 
all  truth  as  ours  in  Him  who  is  the  Truth.  Though 
the  historical  facts  which  constitute  the  Gospel  are 
recorded  once  for  all,  we  believe  that  the  unfolding  of 
their  meaning  is  a  work  of  many  ages,  that  its  fulness 
far  transcends  the  systems  of  Latin  sectarianism,  and 
that  every  return  to  the  limitations  of  a  buried  past  is 
so  much  sin  against  the  Holy  Spirit's  teaching  to  our 
own  time. 

The  above  paragraph  was  the  basis  of  the  present 
volume,  and  states  its  general  purpose. 


vi  PREFACE 

Be  it  clearly  understood  that  each  contributor  is 
responsible  for  his  own  work,  and  for  nothing  more. 
The  writers  approach  their  subjects  from  very  different 
standpoints,  and  sometimes  differ  considerably  in 
opinions  ;  and  no  attempt  has  been  made  to  conceal 
differences  ;  for  they  do  but  emphasize  their  general 
agreement. 

It  was  no  part  of  the  original  plan  that  the  Editor 
should  write  as  many  as  four  chapters  out  of  thirteen. 
Only  the  failure  of  a  valued  contributor  at  the  last 
moment  obliged  him  to  undertake  four  chapters  instead 
of  two,  and  to  write  the  last  of  the  four  without  access 
to  his  own  reference  books.  He  would  have  much 
preferred  to  leave  it  in  Professor  Allen's  abler  hands. 

CoLwicH  Vicarage, 

Sept.  9,  1899. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  I 

PAOB 

The  Apostolic  Age     ....  .  .         i 

By  the  Rev.  J.  Llewelyn  Davies,  M.A., 
Vicar  of  Kirkby  Lonsdale. 


CHAPTER  n 
The  Second  Century.  ....  17 

By  the  Editor. 

CHAPTER  in 
The  School  of  Alexandria  .  .  ,  -33 

By  the  Rev.  C.  Bigg,  D.D., 
Rector  of  Fenny  Compton. 

CHAPTER  IV 

The  Age  of -Councils      •       .  .  .  .  .56 

By  the  Rev.  G.  A.  Schneider,  M.A., 

Examining  Chaplain  to  the  Bishop  of  Sodor  and  Man. 

CHAPTER  V 
The  Latin  Church      ......       87 

By  the  Editor. 

CHAPTER  VI 
England  before  the  Reformation  .  .  .      104 

By  the  Rev.  W.  E.  Collins,  M.A., 

Professor  of  Ecclesiastical  History,  King's  College,  London. 


viii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  VII 

PACK 

The  Reformation        .  .  .  .  .  .125 

By  the  Right  Rev.  the  Lord  Bishop  of  London. 

CHAPTER  VIII 
The  Rise  of  Dissent  in  England  .  .  .  .135 

By  the  Rev.  J.  Hunt,  D.D., 
Vicar  of  Otford. 

CHAPTER  IX 
The  Origins  of  Church  Government      .  .  .163 

By  the  Editor. 

CHAPTER  X 

History  of  the  Lord's  Supper       .  .  .  .179 

By  the  Rev.  Canon  Meyrick,  M.A., 
Rector  of  Blickling. 

CHAPTER  XI 
Protestantism         ...  .  .  .  .199 

By  the  Editor. 

CHAPTER  XII 
Romanism  since  the  Reformation  ....      221 

By  the  Rev.  Chancellor  Lias,  M.A., 
Rector  of  East  Bergholt. 

CHAPTER  XIII 
English  Christianity  to-day  .  .  .  .265 

By  the  Right  Rev.  Alfred  Barry,  D.D. 


THE    CHURCH 

PAST   AND   PRESENT 

CHAPTER   I 
THE   APOSTOLIC   AGE 

By  the  Rev.  J.  LLEWELYN  DA  VIES,  M.A. 

The  records  of  the  life  and  teaching  of  our  Lord  and 
of  the  founding  of  the  Christian  Society  cannot  but 
have  a  unique  authority  to  all  who  claim  to  belong  to 
that  society  ;  and  it  is  not  wonderful  that  it  should  often 
have  been  assumed  that  the  constitution  and  customs 
of  the  Church  in  any  age  ought  to  imitate  as  closely 
as  possible  what  is  shown  us  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment. But  our  sacred  volume  itself  contradicts  such 
an  assumption ;  for,  the  more  thoroughly  and  intel- 
ligently it  is  examined,  the  more  clearly  is  it  seen  to 
describe,  not  a  fixed  arrangement  such  as  might  be 
copied  and  reproduced,  but  a  growing  organism.  This 
character  of  the  Church  of  Christ,  that  it  began  as  a 
germ  and  grew  with  the  years,  is  a  part  of  its  glory, 
and  declares  it  the  more  manifestly  to  be  a  product  of 
the  creative  power  of  the  Eternal.  We  contemplate 
in  the  New  Testament  the  powers  of  the  new  age 
exhibiting  themselves  and  doing  their  earliest  work ; 
and  the  faithfulness  of  each  Christian  communion  is 
proved  in  its  letting  those  forces  work  freely  and  with 
effect  upon  the  historical  conditions  of  the  time. 

A 


2      THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

The  Church  of  Christ  had  its  birth  on  the  Day  of 
Pentecost.  But  preparation  had  been  previously  made 
for  the  great  event  of  that  day.  The  Apostles,  "  Peter 
with  the  Eleven,"  who  stood  forth  as  the  founders  of 
the  Church,  had  been  instructed  and  commissioned 
for  their  work.  They  were  envoys  of  the  Lord  Jesus, 
agents  whom  He  chose  and  sent  forth.  Their  task  was 
to  bear  witness  of  Him  ;  to  proclaim  Him  as  the 
Messiah  who  after  being  rejected  and  crucified  had 
risen  from  the  dead,  and  to  invite  men  to  believe  in 
Him.  Promises  had  been  given  them  which  were  ful- 
filled on  the  Day  of  Pentecost :  their  eyes  were  to  be 
opened  by  an  Ephphatha  from  above,  emotions  and 
thoughts  were  to  be  breathed  into  them  by  a  Divine 
Spirit,  and  they  were  to  find  themselves  in  a  Home 
with  Christ  and  the  Father  and  their  brethren ;  they 
were  to  be  clothed  with  power  from  on  high.  And 
that  was  what  they  experienced.  They  spoke,  those 
few  Galileans,  in  their  new  strength,  with  confidence 
and  dignity  and  fervour,  and  the  Spirit  spread  from 
them  to  their  hearers.  Men  were  touched  and  moved, 
and  drawn  to  the  Crucified  and  to  the  Father,  and  this 
common  attraction  bound  them  together  in  a  rudi- 
mentary association.  So  the  Church  began  its  life  of 
the  ages. 

Even  the  forming  of  the  society  was  a  natural 
result,  rather  than  an  express  project.  All  turned  upon 
the  action  of  the  Apostles ;  and  they,  we  must  assume, 
were  possessed  and  absorbed  by  the  vision  of  their 
Heavenly  Lord  as  present  with  them,  and  by  that  power 
of  the  Spirit  which  had  first  lifted  them  from  their 
feet  and  carried  them  away,  and  then  had  settled  into 
a    strong    joy    and    hope    within    them.      What    could 


THE   APOSTOLIC   AGE  3 

believers  in  the  Crucified  do  but  keep  together  ?  There 
were,  indeed,  two  injunctions  of  their  Master  which  the 
Apostles  remembered  and  followed.  Those  who  should 
be  brought  to  believe  in  Jesus  and  the  Father  were  to 
be  cleansed  from  their  sins  by  a  washing  of  forgiveness. 
So  this  baptism  was  from  the  first  the  mark  put  upon 
those  who  desired  to  join  themselves  to  the  Apostles. 
The  other  ordinance  was  the  joint  feeding  upon  the  Body 
and  Blood  of  Christ.  When  we  look  at  the  narratives 
of  the  Last  Supper,  we  see  no  inclusion  of  others 
besides  the  Twelve  in  the  privilege  then  conferred,  nor 
is  there  any  word  of  Christ  recorded  in  the  Gospels 
which  made  this  ordinance  a  universal  one.  The 
character  of  suspense  which  belongs  to  the  period 
between  the  Resurrection  and  the  Pentecost  would 
incline  us  to  the  belief  that  the  Apostles  did  not  begin 
the  observance  of  the  Lord's  Supper  for  themselves  in 
those  days.  But  when  the  outpouring  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  brought  the  Apostles  and  the  other  believers 
together  in  joy  and  brotherhood,  we  can  hardly  imagine 
that  the  Twelve  could  have  helped  associating  their 
brethren  with  themselves  in  the  act  which  drew  them 
closest  to  the  invisible  Christ.  We  seem  to  see  what 
could  not  have  been  otherwise  in  the  Church  life  of 
the  very  first  days  ;  "  they  continued  steadfastly  in  the 
Apostles'  teaching  and  fellowship,  in  the  breaking  of 
bread  and  the  prayers."  The  Church,  then,  at  its 
beginning  was  a  fellowship  of  men  and  women  who 
gathered  round  the  Twelve,  beheving  in  the  Crucified 
Jesus  as  the  Son  of  God  and  as  present  with  them, 
animated  by  a  spirit  of  enthusiastic  thankfulness  and 
joy,  all  having  been  baptized  and  observing  for  their 
one  distinctive  custom  the  joint  partaking  of  the  bread 


4      THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

and  the  wine  which  represent  the  Body  and  Blood  of 
their  Lord,  and  looking  forward  with  a  yearning  hope 
to  a  triumph  of  His  royal  authority. 

What  is  most  necessary  for  the  understanding  of 
the  history  of  the  Church  in  the  Apostolic  age,  is  to 
bring  to  bear  upon  it  the  belief  of  its  members  in  the 
active  Lordship  of  Christ,  and  their  consciousness  of 
the  continued  influence  of  the  Spirit.  If  these  powers 
had  been  nothing  but  delusions,  they  were  delusions 
which  had  the  full  force  of  living  realities  to  the 
founders  of  the  Church,  and  with  that  authority  im- 
pelled and  guided  their  action.  After  the  Pentecost 
the  Society  went  on,  conscious  of  a  marvellous  salva- 
tion, referring  its  call  and  its  spiritual  life  to  the  one 
Lord  and  the  one  Spirit,  assuming  its  duty  to  be  to 
carry  out  the  purposes  of  the  Redeemer  of  mankind, 
which  were  those  of  the  One  Eternal  Father.  The 
Church  organised  itself,  not  on  any  prescribed  plan,  but 
just  as  organisation  was  called  for  by  its  nature  and  its 
task,  combined  with  the  circumstances  of  its  history. 

It  was  led  on  step  by  step.  Our  attention  is  drawn 
by  the  sacred  history  much  more  to  the  propaganda 
committed  to  the  envoys  of  Christ,  and  to  the  working 
of  the  Spirit  in  the  lives  of  the  believers,  than  to 
details  of  the  Church's  internal  constitution.  The  first 
creation  of  an  office  was  a  typical  instance  of  the 
manner  in  which  Church  order  was  developed.  The 
Seven  were  appointed  to  meet  a  need  which  called  for 
some  action,  and  to  guard  the  concord  and  mutual 
trust  which  it  was  the  glory  of  the  Spirit  to  produce. 
The  Twelve  were  still  exercising  their  original  authority^ 
but  they  asked  the  brethren  to  make  choice  of  seven 
good   men,   and  to  these  they  committed,  with  prayer 


THE   APOSTOLIC   AGE  5 

and  the  laying-on  of  hands,  the  charge  of  distributing 
aid  to  the  poor.  The  Twelve  and  the  Seven  now  held 
office  in  the  Church  at  Jerusalem.  A  more  serious 
movement  of  expansion  came  on  by  degrees  and 
slowly.  The  Church  was  a  Jewish  body,  believing  in 
a  Messiah,  and  its  original  home  was  in  Jerusalem. 
But  its  Gospel  soon  showed  that  it  could  not  be  con- 
lined  within  the  Jewish  enclosure.  The  receiving  of 
Gentile  proselytes  into  the  fold  of  the  Abrahamic 
covenant  had  long  been  a  familiar  thing  to  the  Jews, 
and  the  Apostles  had  been  prepared  by  some  intima- 
tions from  their  Master  for  the  universal  dominion  of 
the  Son  of  Man.  The  leader  of  the  Twelve  had  the 
privilege  of  baptizing  the  first  Gentile  as  a  brother  of 
those  who  believed  in  Jesus  as  the  Messiah  ;  and  he 
was  induced  to  do  this  by  various  indications  which 
he  understood  to  be  signs  of  the  will  of  God,  conspiring 
as  they  did  with  the  pious  hope  which  was  waiting  to 
be  stirred  into  energy.  But  a  new  envoy  of  Christ  was 
chosen  and  commissioned  for  the  bold  action  which 
was  to  claim  all  Gentile  races  for  the  Kingdom  of  the 
crucified  Messiah,  and  to  turn  the  Jerusalem  brother- 
hood into  a  world-wide  Church. 

The  place  of  St.  Paul  in  the  history  of  the  Church 
has  much  to  astonish  us,  and  nothing  could  illustrate 
more  strikingly  than  his  career  the  free  working  of  the 
powers  of  the  new  Dispensation. 

We  see  the  Church  called  into  existence  by  the 
Twelve,  and  taught  and  governed  for  a  time  by  them 
as  a  society  entirely  depending  upon  themselves.  The 
dependence  is  qualified  by  the  direct  rule  of  Christ 
and  the  moving  power  of  the  Spirit,  but  not  by  any 
other  human  authority.     Then  they  begin  to  fade  as  a 


6      THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

governing  body  out  of  the  history  of  the  Church.  No 
explanation  is  given  us  of  this  disappearance.  Yet  not 
only  were  they  the  de  facto  supreme  and  sole  authority 
in  the  Church,  but  the  Gospels  show  us  what  a  distinct 
and  solemn  commission  they  received  from  their 
Master,  and  with  what  comprehensive  forethought  they 
were  prepared  for  the  unique  task  to  which  they  were 
appointed.  We  see  them  the  envoys  of  the  risen  Jesus, 
sent  forth  by  Him  as  He  had  been  sent  forth  by  His 
Father,  charged  to  proclaim  their  Lord  as  King  and  to 
draw  men  to  belief  in  Him,  enabled  by  their  intimacy 
with  Him  to  convey  to  other  men  trustworthy  know- 
ledge concerning  Him,  endowed  with  a  heavenly  Spirit, 
having  the  promise  that  they  should  sit  on  twelve 
thrones  judging  the  twelve  tribes  of  Israel.  All  this 
was  fully  recognised  by  the  early  Church,  and  is  set 
forth  in  its  records.  It  does  not  appear  that  there  was 
any  dissension  caused  by  differences  of  judgment 
amongst  them.  Precedence  was  yielded  to  Peter  and 
James  and  John,  and  of  these  to  Peter.  We  read  of  their 
acting  with  joint  authority  as  the  governing  body  of 
the  Church  when  they  send  Peter  and  John  to  Samaria, 
to  receive  into  the  fellowship  of  the  Spirit  the  converts 
made  by  Philip.  They  are  mentioned  again  when  Bar- 
nabas, acting  as  surety  for  Saul,  "  brought  him  to  the 
Apostles "  at  Jerusalem.  After  that  time  the  Twelve 
appeared  to  lose  by  degrees  their  coherence  as  a  govern- 
ing body,  and  the  Church  at  Jerusalem,  whilst  it  re- 
mains the  Mother  Church,  obtains  an  organisation  of 
its  own.  The  report  of  the  success  of  the  Gospel  at 
Antioch  "  came  to  the  ears  of  the  Church  which  was  at 
Jerusalem,  and  they  sent  forth  Barnabas  as  far  as 
Antioch."     When  the  disciples  at  Antioch  were  moved 


THE   APOSTOLIC   AGE  7 

to  send  relief  to  the  brethren  which  dwelt  in  Judaea, 
they  sent  it  "  to  the  elders,"  When  James  the  brother 
of  John  was  put  to  death,  we  do  not  read  that  his  place 
was  filled  ;  the  Twelve  must  have  come  by  this  time  to 
the  momentous  conviction  that  they  were  appointed  for 
a  special  work,  and  that  they  were  not  to  co-opt  suc- 
cessors as  a  permanent  governing  body.  Another 
James  appears  on  the  scene.  Peter,  after  his  deliver- 
ance from  prison,  coming  first  to  the  house  of  Mary 
the  mother  of  John,  declares  to  those  who  were  assem- 
bled there  "  how  the  Lord  had  brought  him  forth  out 
of  the  prison,"  and  then  bids  them  "  tell  these  things 
unto  James  and  to  the  brethren,"  and  goes  away  to 
another  place.  The  brethren  at  Antioch,  when  they 
were  troubled  by  the  question  whether  Gentile  converts 
should  be  circumcised  or  not,  appointed  that  Paul  and 
Barnabas  and  others  "  should  go  up  to  Jerusalem  unto 
the  Apostles  and  elders  about  this  question."  The 
phrase,  "  the  Apostles  and  elders,"  is  repeated.  The 
Antioch  envoys  were  received  by  "  the  Church  and  the 
Apostles  and  the  elders."  "  The  Apostles  and  the 
elders  were  gathered  together  to  consider  of  this 
matter."  There  was  much  questioning,  and  then  Peter 
rose  up,  reminding  his  audience  that  he  had  been  chosen 
to  receive  the  first  Gentile  into  the  Church.  It  is  James 
who  pronounces  the  final  judgment  of  the  Assembly. 
And  the  action  taken  is  thus  described  :  "  It  seemed 
good  to  the  Apostles  and  the  elders,  with  the  whole 
Church,"  to  send  two  of  their  chief  men  with  an  official 
letter  to  Antioch  ;  and  the  letter  begins,  "  The  Apostles 
and  the  elder  brethren  unto  the  brethren  which  are  of 
the  Gentiles  in  Antioch  and  Syria  and  Cilicia,  greeting." 
Some  time  after,  when  St.  Paul  went  up  on  his  last  visit 


8      THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

to  Jerusalem,  we  read,  "  The  brethren  received  us  gladly. 
And  the  day  following  Paul  went  in  with  us  unto 
James,  and  all  the  elders  were  present."  It  seems  a 
reasonable  inference  from  these  passages  that,  when  the 
Church  began  to  spread  beyond  Jerusalem,  the  Twelve 
withdrew  from  the  actual  government  of  the  Jerusalem 
society,  and  did  not  retain  any  official  unity  as  the 
governing  body  of  the  whole  Church.  What  deference 
was  paid  to  them  was  paid  to  their  personal  authority, 
and  they  occupied  themselves  as  each  was  moved  and 
led  in  bearing  their  witness  and  proclaiming  their 
Gospel. 

The  question  is  a  little  complicated  by  the  habit 
which  arose  of  giving  the  name  Apostles  to  others 
besides  the  Twelve.  If,  when  Andronicus  and  Junias  are 
said  by  St.  Paul  to  be  "  of  note  among  the  Apostles," 
it  is  meant  that  they  were  leading  and  conspicuous 
Apostles,  a  wide  extension  seems  to  be  given  to  the 
term.  We  should  hardly  expect  persons  of  whom  we 
know  nothing  but  their  names  to  be  Apostles  at  all, 
in  that  age  of  the  "  Acts "  ;  but  that  they  should  be 
Apostles  of  note,  sets  us  wondering  how  many  Apostles 
there  may  have  been  who  were  not  of  note.  Critics 
are  putting  us  on  our  guard  against  assuming  titles 
like  eTr/cr/fOTTO?  and  aTroa-roKoq  and  SiaKovo?  and  even 
'Trpecr^urepog  to  be  always  official  names  ;  but  St.  Paul 
more  than  once  appears  to  give  a  definite  first  place 
to  "Apostles"  amongst  the  ministries  of  the  Church. 
The  view  that  the  designation  was  limited  to  those  who 
had  seen  the  Lord  Jesus  after  His  resurrection  has 
much  to  commend  it,  but  it  is  hardly  in  harmony  with 
the  significance  of  the  word  "  envoy,"  or  with  the  sub- 
apostolic   use   of   the   title.      Perhaps   "  Apostles  "   are 


THE   APOSTOLIC   AGE  9 

named  first  as  being  those  who  began  the  work  of 
building  up  the  Church  in  any  new  place  by  making  a 
first  appearance  there  as  heralds  of  the  Christ.  Or  the 
title  may  have  been  given  to  those  who  were  known  to 
have  been  sent  on  special  missions  by  leading  Churches, 
as  Barnabas  and  Saul  were  by  the  Church  at  Antioch. 

Whilst  the  Twelve  were  decreasing,  another  was 
increasing.  Saul  of  Tarsus  showed  no  eagerness  to 
head  a  party  in  the  Church.  He  took  time  for  con- 
victions to  mature  and  develop  themselves  in  his  great 
soul.  He  was  content  for  a  while  to  act  as  coadjutor 
to  the  genial  and  fervid  Barnabas.  He  did  not  make 
himself  dictator  of  the  society  at  Antioch  which  owed 
so  much  to  his  labours.  Remarkable  as  his  call  had 
been,  and  as  he  thoroughly  well  knew  it  to  have  been, 
he  waited  for  guidance  as  to  what  he  should  do  and 
where  he  should  go.  It  is  quite  open  to  us  to  believe 
that  it  was  not  without  suggestions  from  Barnabas  and 
Saul  themselves  that  these  two  zealous  preachers  were 
sent  forth  by  the  Church  at  Antioch  on  that  mission 
which  was  bold  and  adventurous  from  the  first,  and 
which  proved  so  supremely  important  in  the  history  of 
the  Church.  But  it  is  made  clear  that  the  Twelve  had 
nothing  to  do  with  it.  What  St.  Paul  did  afterwards  on 
his  own  authority  justified  him  in  leaving  out  of  account 
the  fact  that  he  had  accepted  a  definite  commission 
from  men,  in  the  fulfilling  of  which  he  was  made  the 
actual  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles.  But  the  journey  of  the 
two  missionaries  ended  with  their  duly  making  their 
report  at  Antioch,  "  from  whence  they  had  been  com- 
mitted to  the  grace  of  God  for  the  work  which  they 
had  fulfilled."  These  words  suggest  a  question  whether 
the  opening  of  the  Church  to  Gentiles  had  been  dis- 


lo     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

cussed  by  the  chief  persons  of  the  Church  at  Antioch 
before  their  envoys  started.  It  is  not  easy  to  ex- 
plain why  more  is  not  made  of  the  conversion  of  so 
important  a  Gentile  as  Sergius  Paulus  the  proconsul, 
but  perhaps  we  are  not  to  conclude  that  he  was  bap- 
tized and  became  a  professed  Christian.  The  word, 
"  Lo,  we  turn  to  the  Gentiles,"  was  not  spoken  at 
Paphos.  It  was  in  a  curiously  obscure  region  that  the 
gospel  was  first  preached  freely  to  Gentiles,  and  churches 
formed  of  Gentile  as  well  as  Jewish  believers.  The  pro- 
clamation of  Jesus  the  Crucified,  in  being  thus  extended, 
was  also  itself  exalted.  Jesus  believed  in  by  Jews  as 
their  Messiah,  even  with  a  promise  of  His  future  dominion 
over  the  world,  was  hardly  the  same  object  of  faith  as 
Jesus  the  Son  of  God  inviting  all  men  to  come  to  the 
Father  and  be  forgiven.  It  was  this  Son  of  God  of 
whom  Paul  was  henceforth  the  herald.  The  relations 
of  his  expanding  work  to  the  Jewish  Christian  societies 
in  Judaea  and  Syria  became  a  question  of  great  interest 
and  importance.  As  we  have  seen,  there  was  no  chief 
Apostle,  no  governing  body,  presiding  over  the  church 
as  a  whole.  But  St.  Paul  was  as  loyal  as  the  most 
devoted  of  the  companions  of  Jesus  to  the  invisible 
Head  of  the  Church  ;  and  the  one  Spirit  moving  in  all 
the  societies  and  all  the  members  was  as  real  and  divine 
to  him  as  it  had  been  to  the  3000  of  the  Day  of  Pente- 
cost. These  powers — the  rule  of  Christ,  the  influence 
of  the  Spirit — continue  to  carry  the  Church  forward, 
and  they  preserve  its  unity  in  the  most  difficult  circum- 
stances. Over  the  churches  which  owed  their  existence 
to  him  St.  Paul  exercised  what  we  must  call  an  auto- 
cratic authority.  His  personal  rule  kept  these  churches 
together.      Paul  was  the  one  Apostle,  the  one  teacher,  to 


THE   APOSTOLIC   AGE  ii 

whom  they  looked  up.  But  he  never  allowed  them  to 
forget  that  he  was  the  slave  of  the  Jesus  who  had  shown 
Himself  in  Galilee  and  been  put  to  death  in  Jerusalem, 
of  the  Messiah  whom  the  Jews  had  been  taught  by 
their  prophets  to  expect.  And  whilst  he  owned  no  sub- 
jection to  any  other  Apostles,  claiming  firmly  to  have 
an  independent  commission  from  Christ,  his  loyalty  to 
Christ  made  him  set  the  highest  value  on  the  spiritual 
fellowship  of  all  Christ's  flock,  and  urged  him  to  do  his 
utmost  to  preserve  that  fellowship  unbroken.  What  we 
see  as  regards  the  Church  in  general,  in  the  latter  years 
of  the  Apostolic  age,  is — Paul  by  far  the  most  com- 
manding figure  in  the  Church,  those  who  remained  of  the 
Twelve  working  here  and  there  and  regarded  with  great 
personal  respect,  the  Churches  of  St.  Paul  acknowledging 
his  authority,  those  of  Judaea  and  Syria  held  together  by 
their  traditions  and  by  deference  to  the  Church  of  Jeru- 
salem, and  unity  preserved  between  the  Pauline  and  the 
Judaean  Churches  by  the  profound  reverence  of  all  for 
their  one  Heavenly  Lord  and  by  their  consciousness  of 
the  active  influence  of  the  one  Spirit. 

Each  society  had  some  internal  organisation,  and 
no  doubt  the  example  set  by  the  earliest  societies  was 
followed  by  the  others.  "The  elders"  in  the  Church 
of  Jerusalem  are  mentioned  frequently,  and  there  were 
elders  in  every  Church.  The  precedents  afforded  by  the 
Jewish  communities  in  Judaea  and  throughout  the  Dis- 
persion, and  by  the  confraternities  of  various  kinds 
which  then  abounded  in  the  Roman  Empire,  were 
hardly  needed  to  suggest  what  was  so  rudimentary 
and  natural  a  constitution.  It  is  a  matter  of  course 
for  an   association  to  have  a  committee  ^  under  some 

^  The  word  committee  appears  to  be  derived,  through  the  French  comite, 
from  comitatus. 


12     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

name  or  other,  and  a  committee  will,  in  general,  have  a 
chairman.  The  elders  of  a  church  were  a  representa- 
tive committee,  consisting  of  persons,  for  the  most  part 
elderly  men,  in  whom  their  brethren  had  confidence  ; 
and  in  some  cases  the  leading  elder  would  have  an 
acknowledged  precedence.  In  later  years  the  presiding 
elder  was  specially  designated  by  the  title  e7r/o-/co7ro9, 
and  became  the  bishop  of  the  local  church.  But  in 
the  New  Testament,  it  would  seem,  eTr/o-zcoTro?  should 
rather  be  rendered  overseer  than  bishop,  being  used 
to  describe  the  functions  of  an  elder.  In  addition  to 
the  elders,  there  might  be  in  any  Church  another  class 
of  persons,  resembling  the  Seven  who  were  appointed 
by  the  Twelve  at  Jerusalem,  and  called  ministers  or 
servers.  The  word  Skxkovo?  had  hardly  then  obtained 
a  strictly  official  sense,  but  was  used  in  accordance 
with  its  ordinary  meaning.  A  Christian  Society, 
whether  in  Judaea  or  founded  by  St.  Paul,  consisted 
of  "  the  brethren  "  ;  and  these  had  their  elders,  with 
or  without  a  recognised  chief  elder,  and  their  deacons. 

There  were  two  features  of  the  Apostolic  age,  which, 
while  they  existed  and  when  they  passed  away,  must  be 
considered  as  having  had  an  important  influence  upon 
the  organisation  of  the  Church.  One  was,  the  personal 
authority  of  the  Twelve  and  St.  Paul ;  the  other,  the 
worship  offered  in  the  Temple  at  Jerusalem.  The 
departure  of  the  Apostles  made  room  for  the  develop- 
ment of  the  order  of  bishops  ;  and  it  may  be  supposed 
that  the  sacrificial  ideas  and  sentiments  which  had  been 
associated  with  the  Temple-worship  sought  some  satis- 
faction, when  the  Temple  was  destroyed  and  its  worship 
abolished,  in  the  regular  ministry  and  worship  of  the 
Church. 


THE  APOSTOLIC   AGE  13 

We  contemplate  with  astonishment  the  work  done 
by  the  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles  during  the  few  years  of 
his  Apostohc  service  between  Antioch  and  Rome.  It 
is  evident  that  there  was  a  wonderful  persistent  enthu- 
siasm by  which  he  was  himself  impelled,  and  which  he 
was  able  in  some  degree  to  communicate  to  strangers 
who  heard  him.  We  can  understand  the  impression 
that  might  be  made  by  the  proclamation  of  the  Cross 
and  the  offer  of  forgiveness  and  reconciliation.  But 
the  Apostle's  testimony  produced  in  the  minds  of  the 
believers  not  only  a  response  to  Divine  grace,  but  also 
a  conviction  that  there  was  something  before  them, 
something  to  live  for,  a  movement  to  which  they  were 
surrendering  themselves.  The  Christians  of  the  Apos- 
tolic age  were  looking  forward  to  a  Coming,  an  Appear- 
ing, a  Day,  of  the  Lord.  What  this  exactly  signified  to 
St.  Paul  and  the  Apostolic  teachers  in  general  it  is  not 
easy  to  determine.  There  are  some  passages  in  the 
New  Testament  which  suggest  that  they  expected  an 
"  end  of  the  world "  as  it  would  be  popularly  under- 
stood now.  But  other  passages  convey  a  different 
impression,  and  would  lead  us  to  believe  that  St.  Paul 
was  rather  looking  for  a  fuller  diffusion  of  light  which 
had  already  shone,  for  the  prevailing  over  the  world  of 
a  kingdom  which  had  been  already  established,  for  a 
gradual  accomplishment  of  Divine  purposes  of  which 
the  working  was  already  manifested. 

The  reader  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians,  for 
example,  would  conclude  that  the  writer  had  his  mind 
set  upon  a  gradual  consummation  of  what  had  been 
gloriously  begun.  The  believers  were  contemplated 
and  addressed  as  having  been  raised  from  the  dead  and 
exalted  with  Christ  ;  the  future  was  to  be  in  accordance 


14     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

with  the  power  already  working  in  them  ;  God  was  to 
show  in  the  ages  coming  on  the  exceeding  riches  of  His 
grace  in  kindness  towards  men  in  Christ  Jesus  ;  the 
body  of  Christ  was  to  be  built  up  through  the  action  of 
the  ministries  provided  for  that  purpose.  The  Day  of 
the  Lord  was  regarded  as  the  coming  of  light  ;  and  the 
believers  at  Thessalonica  and  at  Rome  were  bidden  to 
understand  that  for  them  the  light  had  already  come, 
that  they  were  sons  of  light,  sons  of  the  day,  and  that 
they  were  bound  to  walk  as  in  the  light.  In  the  per- 
plexing address  of  St.  Peter  given  in  Acts  iii.,  he  calls 
upon  his  countrymen  to  repent,  so  that  God  may  send 
them  the  Christ  who  had  been  appointed  for  them. 
The  time  in  which  he  is  speaking  is  that  of  which  all 
the  prophets  had  spoken,  the  time  of  the  restoration  or 
resettlement  of  all  things,  introduced  by  a  second 
Elijah.  Indeed,  the  risen  Christ  was  already  sent,  if 
only  the  people  by  repenting  would  open  their  eyes  to 
see  Him.  "To  you  first  God,  having  raised  up  His 
Servant,  sent  Him  to  bless  you,  in  turning  away  every 
one  of  you  from  your  iniquities."  The  consummation 
was  to  be  brought  about  through  the  turning  to  God  of 
Israel  and  of  all  the  families  of  the  earth.  On  the 
whole,  the  Christians  were  taught  that  there  was  Divine 
glory  to  be  revealed,  that  they  were  enlisted  into  an 
army  of  light  for  which  victory  and  triumph  were  pre- 
pared, and  that  they  and  all  men  were  to  be  blessed 
in  knowing  Christ  and  the  Father.  Appeal  was  con- 
stantly made  to  the  Spirit  working  in  the  societies  and 
in  each  believer ;  this  Spirit  was  an  earnest  of  the 
future  inheritance,  a  sign  and  guide  as  to  the  Divine 
purpose.  So  that  the  consciousness  of  the  believers 
was  not  that,  when  they  had  been  saved  out  of  estrange- 


THE   APOSTOLIC   AGE  15 

ment  and  darkness,  things  had  been  settled  for  them, 
and  that  each  had  only  to  look  forward  to  being  re- 
moved by  death  into  a  condition  of  perfect  felicity,  but 
rather  that  they  were  called  to  have  a  part  in  an 
approaching  triumph,  and  that  they  had  to  follow  such 
a  leader  as  Paul  in  a  campaign  against  the  evil  powers 
which  was  to  end  in  a  conquest  of  the  world  for  Christ. 
And  we  can  understand  this  to  have  been  an  inspiriting 
consciousness.^ 

As  we  look  back  from  our  existing  environment  upon 
the  Church  of  St.  Paul  and  his  fellow-believers,  the  dif- 
ferences between  our  condition  and  theirs  multiply  upon 
the  imagination  till  it  becomes  a  little  difficult  to  pro- 
nounce distinctly  what  we  have  as  Christians  in  common 
with  them.  We  have  at  least  a  negative  point  of  agree- 
ment, upon  which  I  have  thought  it  important  to  dwell. 
There  is  now  no  earthly  head  or  governing  body  of  the 
universal  Church.  It  is  sometimes  depressing  to  many 
of  us  to  reflect  that  Christendom  is  made  up  of  a 
number  of  bodies  independent  of  each  other,  and  that 
there  is  no  authority  over  all  to  tell  them  what  they  are 
to  believe  and  how  they  are  to  act,  so  that  they  may 
believe  and  act  in  unison.  But  there  was  similar  inde- 
pendence, a  similar  absence  of  a  constitutional  govern- 
ing body  over  the  Church,  in  the  Apostolic  age.      In 

1  There  are  symptoms  of  impatience  and  disappointment  following  the 
excited  expectations  of  the  early  Christian  years.  But  on  the  other  hand  there 
can  have  been  no  general  collapse  of  the  Church  at  the  close  of  the  Apostolic 
age,  when  the  Christians  saw  that  the  age  was  closing  without  that  visible 
return  of  the  Lord  in  celestial  glory  which  many  had  expected.  And  it  is 
remarkable  that  the  prophecies  of  the  Lord's  coming  which  had  been  pre- 
served in  the  Apostolic  memoirs  and  letters  were  studied  and  edited  in  the 
second  century  without  any  apparent  uneasy  feeling  that  the  prophecies  had 
been  fallacious.  The  Church  lived  and  grew  through  a  period  of  what  might 
be  represented  as  overwhelming  disillusionment. 


1 6     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

that  age  the  Christians  were  taught  to  beheve  that 
Christ  and  His  Spirit  were  governing  the  Church,  and 
that  those  who  sought  guidance  from  Christ  and  the 
Spirit  might  rely  on  the  promise,  "  I  will  not  leave  you 
bereaved,  helpless,"  and  would  receive  the  guidance 
they  needed.  If  it  was,  and  is,  the  will  of  the  Divine 
Saviour  that  His  people  should  always  look  to  Him  and 
the  Spirit,  would  not  that  explain  why  the  Church  is 
without  a  visible  governing  authority  ?  Divided  as 
Christians  are  now,  we  have  great  unities  to  which  we 
all  profess  allegiance  in  common  with  the  Apostolic 
Christians.  "  There  is  one  body,  and  one  Spirit,  even 
as  also  we  were  called  in  one  hope  of  our  calling ;  one 
Lord,  one  faith,  one  baptism,  one  God  and  Father  of 
all."  If  we  would  accept  the  monition  of  the  Apostolic 
age,  the  way  to  the  vital  and  perfect  unity  of  the  body 
of  Christ,  the  hope  of  justifying  more  obviously  the 
name  of  the  Catholic  Church,  is  not  through  agreeing 
to  submit  to  one  governing  authority,  still  less  through 
bringing  all  Christian  societies  into  one  pattern  of 
outward  organisation,  but  through  adhering  more 
closely  to  the  one  Heavenly  Head,  submitting  more 
simply  to  the  impulses  of  the  one  Spirit,  and  cherish- 
ing with  more  fervour  the  common  ambitions  of  the 
Divine  kingdom. 


CHAPTER    II 
THE   SECOND   CENTURY 

By  THE  EDITOR 

The  revelation  to  which  the  Church  of  God  bears 
witness  is  neither  a  body  of  dogmas,  nor  a  code  of 
laws,  nor  a  system  of  philosophy,  but  a  living  Person. 
Christ  our  Saviour,  Son  of  God  and  Son  of  Man,  is 
Himself  the  revelation,  at  once  of  God  to  man  and 
of  God  in  man.  The  gospel  of  His  thirty  years  or 
so  of  sojourn  here  on  earth  is  only  the  light  from 
heaven  by  which  His  mighty  working  in  heaven  and 
earth  is  thrown  on  the  majestic  background  of  eternity. 
Christ  came  to  destroy  nothing  at  all,  save  the  works  of 
the  devil,  but  to  fulfil  the  fair  promise  of  God's  world, 
which  man  had  marred  by  sin.  He  came  that  we 
might  have  life,  and  have  it  in  abundance  ;  not  to 
stunt  or  mutilate  even  the  bodily  nature,  but  to  quicken 
the  dormant  spirit  and  hallow  every  deed  and  word 
and  thought  of  man  with  life  divine. 

Hence  the  elasticity  and  vast  variety  of  Christianity. 
Dogma  is  satisfied  with  assent,  law  with  obedience, 
philosophy  with  understanding  ;  but  a  living  Person  calls 
for  nothing  short  of  the  whole  man's  personal  devotion. 
Given  only  that  personal  devotion,  the  Lord  receives 
men  as  He  finds  them,  with  all  their  weaknesses  and 
errors,  and  all  their  limitations  of  race  and  time  and 
individual    character.      Through    all    these    His    Spirit 


i8     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

works,  guiding  them  into  truth  as  they  are  able  to 
receive  it.  Thus,  though  Christianity — the  love  of 
Christ — is  always  in  itself  the  same,  its  outward  and 
historic  form  is  shaped  by  outward  and  historic  causes. 
Just  because  the  living  power  is  from  heaven,  heavenly, 
its  working  in  the  world  is  natural,  not  magical.  At 
once  transcendent  and  immanent,  it  works  in  and 
through  natural  laws,  yet  lifts  up  nature  to  a  higher 
level.  The  lifting  process  may  seem  slow  and  partial, 
though  we  can  trace  out  something  of  its  course  in 
history  ;  but  if  ages  of  ages  were  needed  to  prepare 
the  world  for  the  coming  of  the  eternal  Word,  ages 
may  be  needed  again  for  the  working  of  the  power 
that  is  to  lift  up  man  above  the  angels. 

Christian  duty  is  the  love  of  Christ  and  nothing 
more  :  but  love  must  work  on  knowledge  and  show 
itself  in  action.  The  knowledge  is  of  the  Lord's  person, 
for  there  is  no  Christian  doctrine  but  this — the  rest  are 
inferences  of  reason  from  it.  The  action  ranges  through 
the  whole  of  life,  for  no  part  of  life  in  Christ  is  common 
or  unclean.  Religions  may  be  content  with  a  ritual, 
but  the  revelation  calls  for  the  whole  man.  If  there 
be  right  action,  or  true  fact,  or  living  force  apart  from 
Christ,  then  Christ  is  neither  the  way,  nor  the  truth,  nor 
the  life. 

Now  the  natural  man — and  we  all  have  a  good  deal 
of  the  natural  man — cannot  give  this  personal  devotion. 
His  religion  is  a  religion  of  fear,  as  the  Cambridge 
Platonists  used  to  say  ;  and  he  cannot  get  rid  of  his 
fear  by  simply  calling  himself  a  Christian.  He  fears 
Christ,  and  searches  heaven  and  earth  for  mediators — 
angels  and  saints  in  heaven,  saints  and  priests  on  earth, 
who   seem    nearer   to    him   and   less   terrible   than   the 


THE   SECOND   CENTURY  19 

gracious  Saviour.  He  fears  Christ,  and  seeks  by  all 
means  to  escape  the  searching  sternness  of  the  Saviour's 
claim — the  claim  of  perfect  love — on  every  act  and 
word  and  thought.  Sometimes  he  ignores  its  practical 
side,  and  contents  himself  with  right  belief  or  right 
feeling  which  leaves  his  life  untouched.  More  com- 
monly he  tones  it  down  till  he  thinks  he  can  meet  it, 
requiring  perhaps  what  he  fancies  a  higher  standard 
from  saints  or  clerics.  He  may  limit  its  range  like 
the  Pharisees,  and  take  refuge  in  ceremonialism  and 
formality  ;  or  he  may  turn  ascetic,  and  fight  the  body 
instead  of  the  carnal  nature.  Above  all,  he  walks  by 
sight  and  not  by  faith,  and  craves  a  carnal  certainty 
which  the  Lord  never  promised.  He  may  make  gods 
to  go  before  him,  and  worship  any  sort  of  idols  ;  or 
he  may  make  for  himself  masters  upon  earth — popes, 
councils,  churches,  priests,  or  spiritual  directors,  who 
shall  precisely  tell  him  what  he  must  believe  and  do. 

These  are  permanent  tendencies  of  human  nature, 
abundantly  illustrated  in  the  history  of  religions. 
Mahometanism,  Buddhism,  and  other  systems,  have 
run  courses  very  like  that  of  Christianity.  The  ten- 
dencies are  much  the  same  in  all,  though  in  each 
case  one  or  another  of  them  may  find  a  check.  Thus 
Mahometanism  has  developed  saints  and  ascetics  in 
abundance,  and  an  uncreated  Koran,  but  neither  priests 
nor  idols.  Judaism  had  its  priestly  ritual  and  traditions 
of  the  elders,  but  was  quite  free  from  idols.  Greek  and 
Roman  heathenism  had  gods  many  and  lords  many, 
each  with  his  peculiar  worship  ;  but  their  authoritative 
traditionalism  was  more  political  than  religious.  The 
tendencies  of  the  natural  man  are  clearly  seen  in  the 
common  features  of  the  development  of  religions,  and 


2  0     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND    PRESENT 

we  may  expect  to  meet  them  again  in  the  history  of  the 
revelation. 

We  shall  not  be  disappointed.  The  race  is  like  the 
man.  Age  after  age  starts  with  fresh  enthusiasm, 
rejoicing  as  a  giant  to  run  his  course  ;  and  age  after 
age  sinks  paralysed  with  sin,  its  work  but  half  begun, 
its  ideals  defiled  and  cast  aside.  History  is  a  record  of 
failures,  of  ruined  empires  and  forgotten  peoples,  vanished 
civilisations  and  fallen  Churches,  for  even  the  power  of 
God  seems  drawn  into  the  vortex  of  universal  failure. 
Yet  history  is  the  most  inspiriting  of  all  studies. 
Through  shames  and  failures  the  uplifting  hand  is 
working  hitherto.  The  shames  remain  for  warning, 
the  failures  do  but  lay  foundations  deeper,  and  the 
work  that  is  done  in  Christ  abideth.  To  each  genera- 
tion is  given  some  new  view  of  truth  ;  and  that  remains. 
The  veil  is  lifting  slowly  ;  but  in  these  latter  days  we 
begin  to  see  how  the  long  procession  of  the  ages  is 
gathering  round  the  glorious  figure  of  the  Son  of  Man 
who  is  the  Lord  of  all. 

We  begin,  then,  with  the  Apostolic  age,  when  the 
steps  of  Christ  were  fresh,  and  echoes  of  His  gracious 
words  remained  with  hundreds  who  had  followed  Him. 
It  was  an  age  of  great  things.  Churches  overspread 
the  empire  in  one  generation,  from  Gaul  to  Pontus  ; 
and  they  not  only  witnessed  the  new  life  that  had 
come  into  the  world,  but  showed  its  working.  In  them 
the  love  of  Christ  had  overcome  the  deepest  prejudices 
of  the  ancient  world — Jew  and  Gentile,  slave  and  bar- 
barian, were  brethren  alike — and  solved  the  social 
problems  which  baffled  Rome,  and  baffle  Europe  still. 
They  had  abolished  beggary,  lifted  woman  to  her 
rightful    place,  and    even    drawn  the  sting  of    slavery. 


THE   SECOND   CENTURY  2i 

No  marvel  if  all  generations  have  called  them  blessed. 
Yet  even  the  Apostolic  age  was  no  golden  time  of  purity. 
Mightily  as  the  spirit  of  Christ  was  working,  the  spirit 
of  Antichrist  was  working  too.  There  was  lying  at 
Jerusalem,  strife  at  Antioch,  apostasy  in  Galatia,  for- 
nication at  Corinth,  "  philosophy  "  at  Colossae.  The 
scandals  were  great,  the  divisions  quite  as  deep  as 
those  of  later  times. 

The  Apostolic  age  is  separated  from  the  sub-Apostolic 
by  a  storm  that  shook  the  world.  First  the  fires  of 
Nero's  persecution  shone  out  in  lurid  horror  like  the 
dawning  of  the  day  of  doom.  Then  came  the  last 
great  strife  of  Rome  and  Israel  for  the  dominion  of 
the  East.  Then  the  Empire  was  itself  convulsed  with 
the  great  civil  wars  which  revealed  its  fatal  weakness  of 
dependence  on  the  legions.  And  when  the  storm  had 
spent  its  fury,  the  scene  was  changed.  Rome,  indeed, 
seemed  as  glorious  as  ever  ;  yet  something  had  passed 
away  with  the  house  of  Divus  Julius.  With  the  mea- 
sured strength  of  middle  life — still  ample,  but  not 
without  a  conscious  limit — she  entered  on  a  silver 
age  of  prosaic  peace,  unstirred  by  civil  war,  before 
the  death  of  Commodus.  But  the  Temple  was  in 
ruins,  Jerusalem  a  desolation,  Israel  uprooted  from 
its  place  among  the  nations.  The  Christian  Church 
was  uprooted  too.  The  Churches  were  cut  loose  in 
one  direction  from  apostolic  guidance,  in  another  from 
their  Jewish  origins,  in  yet  another  from  Roman  tolera- 
tion. Some  strands  of  connection  with  the  past  re- 
mained, like  St.  John  at  Ephesus,  but,  upon  the  whole, 
the  Churches  became  more  and  more  Greek  Churches, 
guided  by  successors  of  Apostles,  while  Rome  had  now 
declared  herself  a  standing  enemy.     In  equal  contrast 


2  2     THE   CHURCH,  PAST    AND   PRESENT 

to  the  particularism  of  ancient  times,  the  Empire  and  the 
Church  were  universal  forces,  and  between  them  lay  the 
future  of  the  world.  Hence  three  centuries  of  bitter 
enmity,  followed  by  a  thousand  years  of  firm  alliance. 

There  is  the  sharpest  possible  contrast  between  the 
bursting  fulness  of  apostolic  writings  and  the  intel- 
lectual poverty  of  the  next  generation.  Its  greatness 
was  not  on  that  side.  Perhaps  even  Polycarp  under- 
stood the  deeper  teachings  of  St.  John  no  better  than 
Clement  understood  St.  Paul.  Yet  the  sub-Apostolic 
fathers  are  striking  characters.  There  is  Clement,  the 
lover  of  concord,  setting  forth  the  order  of  God's  world 
as  a  plea  for  order  in  God's  Church  at  Corinth  ;  and 
the  martyr  Ignatius,  whose  rugged  sentences  are  sparkles 
of  intense  conviction  ;  and  the  saintly  Polycarp,  who 
"  stood  like  an  anvil,"  and  could  speak  with  all  the  stern- 
ness of  St.  John  himself.  But  all  three  are  alike  in  a 
deep  and  thankful  piety  unsurpassed  in  later  ages. 
There  is  a  loveliness  of  its  own  in  this  afterglow  of 
Apostolic  times. 

The  problem  before  them  was  one  that  called  for 
all  their  piety,  and  more  than  all  their  wisdom.  The 
Churches  had  suddenly  lost  their  ready  appeal  on 
doctrine  to  the  witness  of  Apostles,  and  could  no  longer 
call  in  the  authority  of  Apostles  to  put  down  corporate 
disorder  ;  and  the  organisation  which  remained  when 
Apostles  were  withdrawn  was  very  weak.  They  needed 
stronger  local  government  and  stronger  bonds  of  union 
with  each  other,  if  they  were  to  face  the  dangers  of  the 
new  age.  The  outward  danger  from  persecution  was 
not  small,  for  persecution  falls  first  on  leaders,  and  cuts 
off  the  very  men  whose  wisdom  is  most  needed.  True, 
it  calls  out  heroic  examples,  and  greatly  helps  to  weed 


THE   SECOND   CENTURY  23 

out  the  time-servers  and  the  unstable  brethren  ;  but  it 
seldom  softens  those  whom  it  fails  to  overcome.  Its 
hardening  influence  is  conspicuous  in  the  later  persecu- 
tions which  we  know  best,  and  the  sudden  arrests  and 
executions  must  have  done  a  good  deal  to  confuse  order 
and  relax  discipline.  But  the  internal  dangers  were  the 
greatest.  Our  scanty  information  gives  us  no  reason 
to  suppose  that  the  strifes  and  rivalries  of  the  Apostolic 
age  were  followed  by  unruffled  calm.  The  quarrels 
might  be  merely  personal,  as  they  seem  to  have  been 
at  Corinth  when  Clement  wrote  ;  but  they  were  often 
also  doctrinal.  The  disorders  of  Galatians,  Colossians, 
or  Corinthians  sprang  from  permanent  tendencies  of 
human  nature,  and  have  therefore  been  reproduced  in 
all  ages.  Galatians  were  now  represented  by  Judaizers 
generally,  and  Colossians  by  Gnostics,  while  the  partisan- 
ship and  immorality  of  Corinth  is  always  a  practical 
danger.  Christian  duty  was  fairly  clear,  however  it 
might  be  neglected  ;  and  indeed  it  differed  from  the 
better  popular  ideas  of  duty  more  in  motives  and 
sanctions,  and  therefore  in  intensity,  than  in  substance 
and  contents.  But  the  Christian  doctrine,  which  is  the 
ground  of  Christian  motive,  was  less  easily  kept  in  view, 
so  that  it  was  necessary  to  put  its  essential  parts  into 
simple  forms  for  common  use,  and  to  provide  for  it 
more  lasting  guardians  than  the  original  witnesses. 
Furthermore,  the  Churches  were  compelled  by  the 
attacks  of  heathens  and  heretics  not  merely  to  define 
their  positions,  but  to  defend  them,  to  show  their 
historic  soundness  and  consistency  with  reason,  and  to 
refute  current  objections.  If  they  began  with  simple 
apologies  like  those  of  Aristides  and  Justin,  they  were 
gradually  drawn  on  to  the  historical  criticism  of  Irenaeus, 


24     THE    CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

to  the  philosophy  of  Clement,  and  to  the  fuller  doctrinal 
schemes  of  Origen  and  Cyprian. 

Thus  there  were  three  great  needs.  Church  govern- 
ment needed  strengthening,  to  check  disorders  like  those 
of  Corinth  and  to  secure  continuity  of  teaching.  That 
teaching  needed  to  be  placed  on  a  basis  of  Scripture, 
now  that  even  the  disciples  of  the  old  witnesses  were 
passing  away  ;  and  it  needed  also  to  be  summed  up  in 
simple  forms,  so  that  neither  friends  nor  enemies  could 
mistake  its  main  contents.  The  revelation  moreover 
needed  to  be  set  forth  in  its  relation  to  the  thought  of 
that  age  and  of  past  ages,  not  merely  answering  Jewish 
or  heathen  objection,  but  showing  its  bearing  on  cur- 
rent forms  of  religion  and  philosophy,  and  showing  also 
the  abiding  power  of  the  risen  Son  of  Man  to  satisfy 
the  deepest  needs  of  human  nature  in  its  widest  range. 

In  each  of  these  three  directions  the  Apostles  had 
laid  foundations.  If  they  had  no  wish  to  solve  pre- 
maturely the  problems  of  the  next  generation,  they  left 
hints  on  which  it  could  work.  The  first  problem,  as 
we  saw,  was  that  of  Church  government,  and  a  few 
words  will  suffice  on  this,  for  its  growth  will  be  more 
fully  traced  in  another  chapter.  There  is  no  trace  of 
(monarchical)  bishops  in  the  New  Testament,  whereas 
by  the  end  of  the  second  century  every  city  has  its  one 
bishop,  who  for  his  lifetime  is  head  of  the  presbyters 
and  official  guardian  of  orthodoxy  in  that  city.  It  is 
needless  as  well  as  unhistorical  to  suppose  that  the 
Apostles  ordained  episcopacy  as  the  one  lawful  form  of 
Church  government.  Yet  St.  John  must  have  seen  its 
rise  in  Asia,  and  seen  it  without  disapproval,  to  say 
the  least.  There  was  an  earlier  hint  in  such  a  vicar- 
apostolic  as  Timothy.     The  only  reason  (though  it  is  a 


THE   SECOND   CENTURY  25 

sufficient  one)  for  refusing  to  recognise  Timothy  as 
bishop  at  Ephesus  is  that  he  was  no  more  than  a 
special  commissioner.  He  was  soon  recalled,  and  there 
is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  he  ever  saw  Ephesus  again. 
But  other  vicars-apostolic  may  have  been  left  stranded 
by  an  apostle's  death,  and  remained  at  their  post  as 
bishops.  It  cannot  have  been  a  common  case  ;  but  it 
was  hint  enough.  Monarchy  is  the  natural  resource  of 
men  in  times  of  danger.  Just  as  the  nations  of  Europe 
strengthened  their  kings  against  the  anarchy  which  con- 
stantly threatened  the  later  Middle  Ages,  so  the  sub- 
Apostolic  Churches  strengthened  their  bishops  as  centres 
of  unity  and  guardians  of  orthodoxy.  Episcopacy  was 
so  visibly  the  best  and  strongest  form  of  government 
for  the  second  century,  that  hardly  anything  short  of  a 
definite  prohibition  by  the  Apostles  could  have  prevented 
its  spread. 

We  come  now  to  the  source  and  the  expression  of 
Church  teaching.  The  Old  Testament  was  the  Bible  of 
the  Apostles,  so  that  Christianity  was  never  a  purely 
traditional  faith.  But  the  formation  of  a  New  Testa- 
ment was  unavoidable,  when  they  put  the  words  they 
had  heard  from  the  Carpenter's  lips  on  a  level  with  the 
words  which  God  spake  from  Sinai  to  them  of  old.  It 
was  complete,  with  just  a  fringe  of  doubt  concerning 
certain  books,  long  before  the  last  of  their  disciples 
passed  away,  and  thenceforth  remained  for  many 
generations  the  one  unquestioned  source  of  all  Chris- 
tian doctrine.  However  interpretations  might  differ,  its 
supremacy  was  never  doubted  in  the  early  Church.  It 
is  as  fixed  an  axiom  with  Athanasius  as  with  the  Church 
of  England. 

But  if  Scripture  was  acknowledged  as  the  court  of 


26     THE    CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

final  appeal,  it  did  not  follow  that  every  man  was  free 
to  interpret  it  exactly  as  he  pleased, — to  force  on 
it,  for  instance,  Ebionism  or  Gnosticism,  in  defiance 
of  statements  whose  meaning  could  not  fairly  be 
called  doubtful.  For  this  reason  as  well  as  others,  it 
was  necessary  to  sum  up  in  a  short  form  the  chief 
points,  not  so  much  of  Christian  doctrine  as  of  the 
apostolic  testimony.  There  was  an  outline  ready  in  the 
Lord's  baptismal  Formula  (Matt,  xxviii.  19  ;  I  see  no 
reason  to  doubt  its  genuineness),  and  several  passages 
of  the  New  Testament  give  something  like  summings-up, 
though  not  of  the  sort  required.  So  ancient  creeds  are 
always  modelled  on  the  Formula,  and  for  this  reason 
make  slight  mention  of  Baptism,  and  none  at  all  of  the 
Lord's  Supper,  of  Justification,  the  Atonement,  and 
other  important  doctrines.  But  all  these  summaries 
were  matters  of  usage.  A  Church  might  have  a  very 
short  confession  for  the  catechumen  to  pronounce  with 
his  own  lips,  and  a  somewhat  longer  creed  to  form  the 
basis  of  his  instruction  ;  but  its  next  neighbour  might 
word  them  very  differently.  Every  Church  did  that 
which  was  right  in  its  own  eyes,  and  to  this  day  there 
has  never  been  a  Catholic  creed,  in  the  sense  of  one 
acknowledged  by  all  churches.  An  Eastern  Christian 
will  tell  us  that  the  Apostles'  creed  and  the  Quicunque 
are  not  creeds  of  the  orthodox  Church,  and  that  our 
Nicene  creed  is  shamefully  interpolated.  Yet  though 
the  early  creeds  varied  much  in  wording,  in  substance 
they  differed  little.  Agreement  in  the  midst  of  diversity 
summed  up  in  the  most  emphatic  way  the  historical 
facts  which  constitute  the  Gospel,  and  defined  better 
than  any  law  could  have  done  the  limits  which  none 
who  bear  the  name  of  Christ  may  overpass. 


THE   SECOND    CENTURY  27 

There  still  remained  the  hardest  task  of  all.  Though 
no  language  of  men  can  fully  express  the  truth  of  God, 
it  was  none  the  less  necessary  to  show  that  the  revela- 
tion could  bear  the  keenest  scrutiny  of  thoughtful 
heathens — not  only  that  it  practically  answered  the 
spiritual  needs  of  all  men,  but  that  the  truth  it  declares 
is  one  that  satisfies,  and  more  than  satisfies,  the  noblest 
aspirations  of  human  thought.  And  for  this  the  sub- 
Apostolic  age  was  hardly  ripe.  A  full  century  of  pon- 
dering was  needed  before  a  measure  could  be  attempted 
of  the  stupendous  facts  connected  with  our  Saviour's 
coming.  Love  might  recognise  at  once  the  true  light  ; 
but  reason  wanted  time  to  gaze,  and  to  realise  its  be- 
wildering grandeur.  Small  wonder  if  men  stumbled  in 
that  dazzling  light,  and  formed  strange  theories  of  Him 
whom  Ebionites  at  one  end  and  Gnostics  at  the  other 
perforce  acknowledged  as  the  centre  of  the  world's  his- 
tory. Nor  were  the  sub-Apostolic  fathers  men  who  could 
rule  the  intellectual  anarchy  which  the  coming  of  the 
Son  of  Man  had  thrown  into  the  ancient  world.  Their 
task  was  to  preach  and  iterate  the  Apostolic  story,  not 
to  mix  it  up  with  philosophy.  No  man  was  ever  less  fit 
than  Polycarp  to  understand  the  strange  thoughts  of  a 
younger  generation.  Their  firm  conservatism  was  abso- 
lutely needed  for  their  time  :  and,  after  all,  the  second 
century  did  its  fair  share  of  the  work  of  ages  in  orga- 
nising Churches,  settling  the  canon,  and  framing  creeds. 
The  way  forward  was  pointed  out  by  the  Biblical 
studies  of  Tatian  and  Melito,  by  the  commentaries  of 
Papias  and  Heracleon,  by  the  Apologies  of  Aristides 
and  Justin,  and  above  all  by  the  historical  criticism  of 
Irenaeus  and  his  deep  thoughts  on  the  Incarnation  and 
the  Supper  of  the  Lord.     Even  the  errors  of  Gnostics 


28     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

and  Montanists  were  found  useful  warnings  when  the 
School  of  Alexandria  came  forward  to  essay  the  great 
problem.  Origen  and  Athanasius  are  beyond  our  pre- 
sent limits  ;  but  the  twentieth  century  will  have  to  go 
back  to  school  (not  to  slavery)  at  Alexandria.  Latin 
doctrine  came  in  like  the  Law,  by  reason  of  transgres- 
sions ;  and  now  that  its  work  is  done,  we  must  return 
to  that  older  and  freer  covenant  of  God  with  Greece, 
which  no  later  Latin  law  can  disannul. 

The  second  century  has  points  of  likeness  to  many 
later  ages.  In  one  direction  it  recalls  the  iron  conser- 
vatism of  the  changeless  East  ;  in  another  the  firm 
discipline  of  Rome  or  Geneva  ;  in  another  the  Scrip- 
turalism  of  Protestant  Churches  ;  in  another  the  excite- 
ment of  the  old  Methodists  or  the  new  Salvation  Army. 
In  yet  another  it  reflects  the  anarchy  of  thought  in  our 
time,  for  most  of  the  disputed  questions  were  astonish- 
ingly modern  ;  and  the  final  question  behind  them — 
Christ  or  Agnosticism  ? — is  the  final  question  of  all 
ages. 

Yet  it  differed  greatly  from  them  all.  Lines  of 
thought  were  less  defined,  and  language  was  less  fixed 
than  in  later  times.  Words  were  still  fluid  which  after- 
wards became  technical  terms,  and  many  technical 
terms  were  not  yet  invented.  Whole  regions  of  doc- 
trine were  so  far  unexplored,  and  the  best  studied  parts 
of  it  were  not  yet  worked  out  with  the  many-sided  care 
of  many  ages.  There  was  no  possibility  yet  of  any- 
thing like  our  modern  Confessions,  where  every  phrase 
recalls  the  controversies  of  the  past,  and  every  sentence 
is  shaped  by  the  struggles  of  centuries.  With  this  state 
of  things  there  naturally  went  many  crudities  of  doctrine. 
Some  of  them  have  seldom  been  revived  in  later  times, 


THE   SECOND   CENTURY  29 

like  the  materialising  views  of  both  sacraments  connected 
with  the  materialising  idea  of  the  soul  derived  from  the 
Stoics.  Even  if  the  material  water  of  baptism  or  the 
material  bread  of  the  Lord's  Supper  be  supposed  to 
have  a  quasi-material  influence,  nobody  would  now 
explain  it  by  their  affinity  to  a  material  soul.  But  most 
of  the  crudities  are  the  recurring  ideas  of  all  ages.  The 
Millennarians,  for  instance,  are  always  with  us,  and  the 
computers  of  the  number  of  the  Beast  and  of  the  end 
of  the  world,  and  the  believers  in  the  material  fires  of 
hell,  for  the  literalists  are  men  of  all  times.  The 
Quakers  are  not  the  first  who  scrupled  oaths  and  war  ; 
and  there  is  no  novelty  in  the  vegetarians,  or  in  the 
temperance  men  who  refuse  the  eucharistic  wine. 
There  were  thought-readers,  too,  and  spiritualists  and 
mediums — no  mean  practitioners — and  conjurers  and 
impostors  in  rich  variety,  ranging  down  from  hypnotists 
as  devilish  as  some  of  our  own  to  the  common  quacks  of 
the  market.  Hardly  a  folly  of  our  time  was  wanting — 
Anglo-Israel  of  course  excepted.  Graver  thoughts  were 
also  very  like  our  own.  The  difficulties  of  Theism  and 
Agnosticism  were  most  of  them  familiar  to  the  Gnostics  ; 
and  things  like  Mariolatry  and  transubstantiation  were 
not  unknown  among  them,  for  it  would  not  be  easy  to 
find  a  heresy  the  Gnostics  never  thought  of.  So  modern 
is  it  all,  in  many  ways  more  modern  than  a  world  our 
fathers  could  well  remember. 

How  then  shall  we  class  the  Church  of  the  second 
century  with  regard  to  modern  Churches  ?  Protestant 
it  was  not,  for  Protestantism  never  succeeded  very  well 
in  its  persistent  endeavour  to  return  to  primitive  models. 
It  is  no  harder  to  raise  the  dead  than  to  restore  a 
vanished  past.     For  good  and  for  evil,  the  simplicity  of 


30     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND    PRESENT 

early  times  was  gone  for  ever  long  before  the  Reforma- 
tion. The  long  centuries  of  Latin  tutelage  had  left  an 
indelible  mark  on  Western  thought  ;  and  Protestantism 
— at  least  Lutheran  and  English  Protestantism — was 
far  too  reverent  and  wise  to  undo  with  one  fell  blow 
the  work  of  ages.  It  was  too  Christian  and  too  Northern 
to  accept  without  reserve,  too  Christian  and  too  Latin 
to  set  aside  without  discrimination,  the  great  structure 
of  Latin  thought  which  faced  it  at  the  Reformation. 
Thus  the  part  rejected  was  rejected  with  an  emphasis 
unknown  to  earlier  times,  and  the  part  retained  had 
much  in  it  of  purely  Latin  and  not  of  primitive  growth. 
Protestantism  might  speak  in  deliberate  opposition  to 
Rome,  or  in  deliberate  agreement  with  Rome ;  and 
either  way  was  a  clear  departure  from  primitive  models. 
The  one  thing  it  could  not  possibly  do  was  to  speak  in 
primitive  unconsciousness  of  Rome's  existence.  Thus 
though  we  find  in  the  second  century  plenty  of  the 
Protestant  doctrine  which  the  Latin  Church  rejects,  it 
is  hardly  ever  laid  down  with  the  distinctive  emphasis 
of  Protestantism.  In  this  sense,  and  chiefly  in  this 
sense,  the  second  century  is  not  Protestant. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  find  very  few  traces  of  the 
Latin  doctrine  which  Protestantism,  at  least  Lutheran 
and  English  Protestantism,  rejected  ;  and  those  we  do 
find  are  chiefly  Gnostic.  There  were  germs  of  evil  in 
prayers  for  the  dead,  in  enthusiastic  admiration  of 
martyrs,  and  in  overmuch  regard  for  the  physical  facts 
of  fasting  and  virginity,  and  perhaps  in  other  things  ; 
but  they  were  hardly  more  than  germs.  Speaking 
broadly,  the  Church  of  the  second  century  meets  the 
current  Latin  doctrine  of  the  Middle  Ages  with  a 
negative  protest  of  silence  and  of  contrary  teaching  and 


THE   SECOND   CENTURY  31 

example,  which  to  the  student  is  even  more  impressive 
than  the  positive  protest  of  the  Reformation.  Thus  we 
find  no  traces  of  Papal  jurisdiction,  but  abundant  signs 
that  every  Church  in  Christendom  would  have  resented 
any  such  claim  as  a  piece  of  arrogance.  All  are  agreed 
that  the  Church  bears  witness  to  the  broad  facts  of  the 
creed ;  but  nobody  contemplates  a  further  Catholic 
tradition  of  ritual,  discipline,  or  dogma,  which  individual 
Churches  are  not  free  to  alter  as  they  think  fit.  The 
infallibility  of  councils  is  unknown  to  this  age  and  the 
next  ;  and  even  in  the  fourth  century  the  first  faint 
suggestion  of  it  by  the  Arians  rouses  the  indignant 
scorn  of  Athanasius.  The  supremacy  of  Scripture  is 
everywhere  taken  for  granted  ;  and  if  Scripture  is  no- 
where directly  and  expressly  opposed  to  tradition, 
neither  is  tradition  anywhere  made  an  independent 
source  of  doctrine.  Even  TertuUian  maintains  no 
more  than  Hooker's  position,  that  a  Church  is  not 
bound  to  show  a  direct  command  of  Scripture  for 
every  ceremony  it  ordains.  There  is  no  trace  of  a 
sacrificing  (not  purely  pastoral  and  eucharistic)  priest- 
hood till  after  Irenaeus  and  Clement  of  Alexandria  ;  and 
Cyprian  himself  strictly  limits  that  priesthood  to  the 
bishop,  and  calls  the  presbyters  no  more  than  Levites. 
Sacrifice  is  commonly  spoken  of,  but  only  sacrifice  of 
thanksgiving,  and  the  altar,  Irenaeus  tells  us,  is  in 
heaven.  The  bread  of  the  Lord's  Supper  is  no  longer 
common  bread  ;  but  bread  it  always  is,  though  "  bread 
with  a  blessing,"  for  nobody  dreams  of  anything  like 
transubstantiation  unless  it  be  a  few  Gnostics.  If  Pro- 
testantism has  too  sharply  limited  the  possibilities  of 
God's  mercy  to  the  dead,  it  at  least  went  wrong  with 
Irenaeus  ;  and  the  hardest  Calvinism  never  preached  a 


32     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

more  horrible  gospel  of  hell  fire  than  Cyprian  in  the 
next  age.  Altogether,  the  questions  are  few  on  which 
there  is  any  reason  to  suppose  that  the  Church  of  the 
second  century  would  have  preferred  Roman  statements 
to  those  of  the  English  Articles. 


CHAPTER   III 

THE   SCHOOL    OF   ALEXANDRIA 

By  THE  Rev.   C.    BIGG,  D.D. 

Christianity  was  a  new  life  cast  into  the  midst  of  an 
old  civilisation.  With  amazing  strength  and  speed  it 
flew  forth  beyond  the  narrow  limits  of  its  birthplace, 
the  land  of  Judaea,  circling  through  every  region  of  the 
empire,  and  rising  from  class  to  class  of  society. 

At  first  it  was  little  more  than  a  life,  with  many 
intuitions  and  few  formularies,  yet  carrying  within  it 
the  germs  of  thought  which  experience  must  necessarily 
develope.  It  went  forth  like  a  child,  naive  and  un- 
conscious, yet  always  serenely  confident  that  it  was 
endued  with  a  power  capable  of  regenerating  the  whole 
world. 

As  the  Church  passed  on  its  way,  onwards  and  up- 
wards, it  came  into  contact  with  all  the  convictions  and 
all  the  doubts  of  Jew  and  Gentile,  of  all  sorts  and  condi- 
tions of  men.  The  old  state  of  unreasoned  assurance 
could  not  endure.  Sooner  or  later  the  Christian  was 
bound  to  give  account  of  himself,  to  himself  and  to 
others,  in  the  light  of  the  best  knowledge  of  the  day, 
and  in  language  that  could  be  accepted  or  disputed. 
Was  the  Church  fit  only  for  cobblers  and  fullers,  as 
Celsus  asserted,  or  could  it  take  charge  of  intelligence  ? 
Could  it  really  widen  the  horizon  by  raising  the  point 
of  view  ?     Could  it  help  the  statesman  and  the  scholar  ? 

33  C 


34     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND    PRESENT 

Was  Christ,  in  truth,  the  Hght  that  lighteth  every 
man  ?  These  were  the  questions  that  demanded 
answers. 

By  the  end  of  the  second  century  the  Church  was 
emerging  from  the  contest  with  Gnosticism,  or  rather, 
was  rising  above  that  social  stratum  in  which  Gnosti- 
cism abode.  Gnosticism  was  essentially  a  bourgeois 
phenomenon,  borrowing  much  from  the  wild  and  coarse 
imagination  of  Egypt  or  Syria,  but  still  more  from  the 
narrowness,  the  recalcitrance,  and  the  pessimism  of 
the  ill-educated  and  ill-used  middle  class.  Take  a 
serious  but  unenlightened  man  of  inferior  social  grade, 
born  and  bred  in  the  Greco-Roman  Empire,  where  a 
score  of  mythologies  seethed  in  confusion,  give  him  a 
smattering  of  philosophy,  then  introduce  him  to  Christi- 
anity as  a  new  religion  somewhat  better  than  the  rest, 
and  he  will  form  a  Gnostic  system  with  its  evil  God,  its 
asceticism  or  antinomianism,  and  its  families  of  Aeons, 
in  which  Christian  graces,  heathen  gods.  Oriental 
angels  or  demons  play  their  part  as  in  a  wild  kind  of 
religious  melodrama. 

Gnosticism  never  produced  an  eminent  man,  yet  it 
possessed  extraordinary  vitality  among  the  middle  class, 
enduring  under  one  shape  or  another  till  late  in  the 
Middle  Ages.  It  raised  just  those  formidable  problems 
which  are  obvious  to  everybody,  but  it  answered  none 
of  them,  nor  did  it  even  point  the  way  to  an  answer. 
Its  sourness  and  its  recalcitrance  are  best  exemplified  in 
the  phrase  of  Basilides  :  "  I  will  say  anything  rather 
than  admit  that  Providence  is  evil."  Truth  does  not 
reveal  herself  to  men  who  court  her  thus.  If  the 
reader  thinks  this  description  of  Gnosticism  harsh,  he 
should    read    the    Ptstts   Sophia,   of   which    an    English 


THE   SCHOOL   OF   ALEXANDRIA       35 

translation  is  accessible,  or  the  account  of  the  Manichees 
in  the  Confessions  of  St.  Augustine. 

But  in  the  second  century  the  Church  was  coming 
daily  into  closer  contact  with  men  of  the  highest  educa- 
tion. Plutarch  knew  something  of  the  Bible,  and 
Celsus  knew  much.  The  Emperor  M.  Aurelius  dis- 
approved of  the  ''  obstinacy  "  of  the  Christians  whom 
he  put  to  death  ;  and  Pronto,  his  tutor,  is  said  to  have 
written  against  them.  Two  illustrious  names  in  the 
history  of  Neo-Platonism  are  those  of  Numenius  and 
Ammonius  Saccas.  Ammonius  was  at  one  time  a 
Christian.  Numenius  spoke  of  Plato  as  "an  Attic 
Moses,"  and,  if  we  may  venture  on  an  inference  from 
the  curious  dislike  shown  towards  him  by  the  friends 
of  Plotinus,  may  have  been  a  Jew,  or  even  a  Christian. 

Clearly  the  hour  had  come  for  an  explanation  between 
Christianity  and  philosophy,  and  the  times  were  favour- 
able for  such  an  attempt.  Platonism,  a  noble  and 
relicfious  form  of  idealism,  was  in  the  ascendant,  and 
offered  many  points  of  contact  with  the  Church,  espe- 
cially in  its  doctrines  of  spirit  and  of  the  immortality  of 
the  soul.  And,  as  a  natural  consequence  of  this  change 
in  the  temper  of  the  schools,  the  old  hostility  to  Greek 
thought,  which  is  so  strongly  marked  in  the  Apologists, 
with  the  single  exception  of  Justin,  was  giving  way. 
The  rank  and  file  of  the  Church  were  still  as  strong  as 
ever  in  their  dislike  of  the  wisdom  of  the  world,  and 
the  same  feeling  is  still  very  evident  in  Tertullian.  No 
Christian  would  have  dreamed  of  putting  philosophy 
above  the  Creed,  or  substituting  it  for  the  Creed.  But 
many  were  beginning  to  ask  whether  a  highly-trained 
human  intelligence  could  not  throw  light  on  the  diffi- 
culties of  Scripture,  on  the  details  of  moral  duty,  even 


36     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

on  the  axioms  of  the  Creed  itself.  God  made  man  in 
His  own  image.  Surely,  then,  thought  can  meet  revela- 
tion. The  one  is  higher,  the  other  lower,  but  there 
must  be  some  affinity  between  the  two.  Reason  can- 
not predict  revelation,  nor  judge  it  when  it  comes,  but 
it  can  prepare  the  way  for  it,  test  at  any  rate  its  opera- 
tions, and  so  believe  in  its  source,  as  a  child  believes  in 
the  larger  wisdom  of  its  father. 

We  must  confine  ourselves  in  the  present  paper  to 
the  two  great  Alexandrine  doctors,  Clement  and  Origen. 
It  will  not  be  possible  to  enter  largely  on  their  bio- 
graphies or  their  personal  characteristics.  They  were 
very  different  men.  Clement,  we  may  say,  was  the  first 
Christian  mystic  ;  Origen,  the  first  Christian  schoolman. 
Clement  was  much  the  braver  and  the  brighter  of  the 
two.  There  is  a  large  lay  element  in  his  charming 
temper.  He  loved  letters,  prose  or  verse,  tragic  or  comic^ 
grave  or  gay.  He  was  mystic  in  the  same  sense  as 
Fenelon,  believing  that  the  purified  spirit  truly  sees  God 
and  becomes  one  with  God,  and  his  mysticism  gives  him 
extraordinary  freedom,  tenderness,  and  tolerance.  He 
seems  to  rise  above  all  forms,  "  touching  earth,"  to  use 
his  own  phrase,  "  with  but  one  foot ; "  yet  he  is  a  severe 
disciplinarian,  bidding  men  seek  freedom  through  law. 
But  his  severity,  though  it  strikes  the  modern  reader 
as  rather  Puritanical,  is  in  principle  always  kindly  and 
moderate,  like  that  of  St.  Anselm,  who  loved  to  see  his 
guests  enjoy  themselves,  though  he  himself  took  none 
but  the  simplest  fare. 

Clement  seems  to  roam  through  the  fields  of  know- 
ledge picking  every  beautiful  flower  that  comes  in  his 
way,  without  stopping  to  think  how  it  will  harmonise 
with  the  rest  of  his  nosegay.     Origen  is  of  quite  another 


THE   SCHOOL   OF   ALEXANDRIA       37 

Type,  laborious,  erudite,  critical,  always  desperately  in 
earnest.  He  saw  into  things  far  more  deeply  than 
Clement.  Clement  has  no  doubts  ;  Origen  has  many, 
and  he  drags  them  all  into  the  light,  in  full  assurance 
that  there  is  an  answer,  and  that  God  has  somewhere 
revealed  it.  Scripture  must  be  a  sufficient  key  to  all 
spiritual  truth,  and  so  he  collects  manuscripts,  revises 
texts,  publishes  the  Hexapla,  ransacks  the  stores  of 
grammar,  science,  philosophy,  and  brings  all  this  mass 
of  human  learning  to  bear  upon  the  sacred  text.  This 
is,  of  course,  very  much  what  we  do  ourselves,  but  still 
there  is  a  broad  difference.  The  modern  scholar  wants 
to  see  the  Bible  exactly  as  it  is,  and  is  prepared  to  admit 
that  revelation  is  limited  by  its  purpose  and  by  the 
circumstances  under  which  it  is  given.  Origen,  holding 
the  great  Platonic  maxim  that  God  is  all  in  all,  and  all  in 
every  part,  maintained  that  the  whole  body  of  truth  lies 
hidden  in  Scripture.  Any  sentence,  any  word,  rightly 
and  fully  explained,  is  a  microcosm,  and  involves  all 
heaven  and  all  earth,  like  "  the  little  flower  "  of  which 
Tennyson  sang.  Hence  the  Bible  is  the  one  book 
needful.  Science  is  not  a  revelation  so  much  as  the 
key  to  a  revelation  ;  it  is  that  "  key  of  knowledge  "  of 
which  our  Saviour  spoke,  a  necessary  instrument  for  the 
commentator,  but  of  no  value  except  as  an  instrument. 
It  has  been  said  that  self-limitation  is  the  condition 
of  strength.  Origen  is  certainly  limited.  The  realm  of 
beauty  in  nature  and  art,  in  which  Clement  finds  a 
keen  enjoyment,  does  not  exist  for  him.  All  his  great 
faculties  were  bent  with  superb  energy  on  the  establish- 
ment of  ecclesiastical  knowledge  ;  theology  swallows  up 
everything.  It  is  true  that  his  conception  of  theology 
is   broad  and  noble,   and  that   he   accomplished  great 


38     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND    PRESENT 

things  in  every  department  of  the  science.  Still  he  is 
ecclesiastical,  professional,  and  judges  everything  from 
the  one  point  of  view.  He  said  of  philosophy,  "  Few 
are  they  who  have  taken  the  spoils  of  the  Egyptians 
and  made  of  them  the  furniture  of  the  tabernacle." 
Clement  wrote  :  "  There  is  one  river  of  Truth,  but  many 
streams  fall  into  it  on  this  side  and  on  that."  There 
are  dangers  on  both  sides  ;  but  Clement's  view  is  the 
more  genial,  the  more  modern,  and,  we  may  add,  the 
braver. 

The  teaching  of  the  Alexandrines  was  shaped  to 
meet  the  problems  of  their  times.  They  are  the  pro- 
blems of  all  times,  but  from  age  to  age  they  take 
different  forms,  and  the  solution,  as  far  as  a  solution 
can  be  attained,  needs  to  be  continually  revised. 

We  may  take  first  their  treatment  of  Scripture,  and 
here  we  must  think  chiefly  of  Origen. 

He  held  that  the  Bible  is  one  book,  "the  Word," 
and  not  "  the  words,"  of  God.  Till  the  other  day  every 
one  would  have  repeated  this  phrase  ;  it  is  the  expres- 
sion of  what  was  called  "the  plenary  inspiration"  of 
Scripture. 

But,  when  the  scholar  began  to  study  the  recently 
completed  canon  of  Scripture  as  a  whole,  he  became 
aware  of  numerous  and  grave  difficulties.  Manuscripts 
were  corrupt,  and  readings  varied.  There  were  dis- 
crepancies of  statement  between  one  writer  and  another. 
There  were  divergences  of  view  between  one  apostle  and 
another.  The  mysticism  of  St.  Paul  is  not  quite  the 
same  as  the  mysticism  of  St.  John,  and  neither  could 
be  reconciled  without  some  effort  with  the  strong 
discipline  of  the  existing  Church.  What  then  was 
the    function    of    Law  ?    and    what    was    the     precise 


THE   SCHOOL   OF   ALEXANDRIA       39 

relation  of  the  Mosaic  Law  to  the  Gospel  ?  in  what 
sense  was  it  abolished,  and  in  what  sense  did  it  still 
endure  ? 

Other  questions  were  forced  upon  Origen  from  the 
outside,  by  heathen  thinkers  like  Celsus,  or  by  Chris- 
tians like  Ambrosius,  who  had  felt  the  attractions  of 
Gnosticism,  One  was  the  homeliness,  and,  as  it  seemed 
to  the  rhetorical  taste  of  the  day,  the  vulgarity  of  the 
Scripture  narrative.  Another  was  the  contradiction 
between  Scripture  and  science  or  common  sense,  for 
instance  in  the  account  of  Creation.  Above  all,  the 
morality  of  the  Old  Testament  was  vehemently  im- 
pugned from  many  different  sides  by  Ebionites,  Gnostics, 
and  enlightened  pagans.  Men  pointed  to  the  naive 
anthropomorphism  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  to  the 
polygamy  of  the  Patriarchs,  to  the  wars  of  extermination, 
to  the  fierce  language  of  some  of  the  Psalms,  to  the  story 
of  Tamar,  and  asked  in  what  sense  a  book  which  con- 
tained all  these  extravagances  could  be  regarded  as 
divine.  Some  went  so  far  as  to  ascribe  the  authorship 
of  the  Old  Testament  to  an  inferior  and  evil  god. 

The  Alexandrines  were  not  troubled  by  those 
theories  as  to  the  date  and  composition  of  the  different 
books  which  have  been  suggested  in  our  own  times  by 
Greek  and  Hebrew  philologers.  How  Clement  would 
have  regarded  the  refinements  of  modern  scholarship 
may  be  doubtful,  but  that  noble  and  intrepid  spirit, 
with  which  he  compared  philosophy  to  God's  rain 
falling  on  all  kinds  of  soil,  and  causing  all  kinds  of 
seeds  to  grow,  was  hospitable  to  truth  from  whatever 
quarter  it  came.  Origen's  mind  was  not  so  open,  and 
when  we  remember  how  he  refused  to  be  convinced, 
even  by  Africanus,  that  the  story  of  Susanna  was  not 


40     THE    CHURCH,  PAST   AND    PRESENT 

an  integral  part  of  the  Hebrew  book  of  Daniel,  on  the 
ground  that  it  is  not  well  "  to  remove  the  eternal  land- 
marks which  those  set  up  who  were  before  us,"  we  may 
guess  that  he  would  have  looked  with  a  jealous  eye  on 
the  audacities  of  German  scholarship.  He  was  far 
from  being  uncritical,  and  ventured  to  question  the 
Pauline  authorship  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews. 
But  theological  caution,  strange  as  this  may  sound, 
was  a  strong  feature  in  his  character,  and,  if  he  had 
yielded  assent  to  the  modern  view  of  the  Book  of 
Genesis,  it  would  have  been  after  a  severe  struggle. 
But  this  has  been  the  experience  of  many  among 
ourselves. 

The  grave  perplexities  which  attach  to  the  idea  of 
Evolution  were  of  course  unknown  to  the  Alexandrines. 
Evolution  may  be  compared  to  the  spear  of  Achilles  ; 
it  heals  at  any  rate  some  of  the  wounds  which  it  causes. 
In  particular  it  has  supplied  a  sufficient  answer  to  the 
moral  problems  of  the  Old  Testament,  by  telling  us  of 
"  the  light  which  slowly  broadens  down,"  and  how,  in 
all  manifestations  of  the  eternal  law,  the  lower  must 
always  prepare  the  way  for  the  higher.  The  fine  intelli- 
gence of  St.  Augustine  had  grasped  this  idea  at  least  in 
its  ethical  application,  and  in  a  remarkable  passage  of 
the  Confessions  the  saint  defends  the  morality  of  the 
Hebrew  Scriptures  on  this  very  ground.  In  the  days 
of  his  Manichaean  wilfulness  he  too  had  measured  the 
past  by  the  stiff  rule  of  the  present.  "  I  did  not  know," 
he  writes,  "the  true  inner  righteousness  which  judges 
not  conventionally  but  by  the  upright  law  of  Almighty 
God,  whereby  the  customs  of  countries  and  times  are 
adapted  to  the  countries  and  times,  though  the  law  is 
the   same   everywhere  and    always."      But   Origen   had 


THE   SCHOOL   OF   ALEXANDRIA       41 

not  risen  to  this  height.  Like  all  the  men  of  his  day, 
and  many  men  of  our  day,  he  thought  that  the  precept 
was  as  unchangeable  as  the  principle. 

Hence,  as  he  could  not  and  would  not  strangle  his 
doubts,  he  was  driven  to  adopt  that  mode  of  inter- 
pretation which  we  call  Allegorism.  It  had  been  in- 
vented by  pagans  to  defend  their  myths,  and  came  to 
Origen  stamped  with  the  approval  of  Philo  and  Clement. 
But  he  greatly  extended  its  application,  using  it  with 
the  utmost  freedom  for  four  different  purposes — (i)  as 
a  weapon  of  defence  ;  (2)  as  a  means  of  demonstrating 
the  unity  of  Scripture  ;  (3)  as  an  engine  of  prophecy  ; 
(4)  as  a  necessary  interpretation  of  the  dogma  and 
discipline  of  the  Church. 

Allegorism  in  our  times  is  almost  universally  mis- 
understood. Quite  recently  the  author  of  an  excellent 
work  upon  Clement,  M.  de  Faye,  has  spoken  of  it  as 
"  resting  entirely  upon  fiction."  It  is  indeed  "  the  art  of 
making  one  thing  mean  another."  But  then  everything 
does  mean  something  else.  Everything  is  symbol. 
Every  atom  is  vitally  linked  to  its  neighbour  atom,  and 
every  effect  is  an  image  of  its  cause.  Undoubtedly 
there  is  such  a  thing  as  analogy ;  but  some  analogies 
are  much  deeper  than  others,  and  if  we  cannot  distin- 
guish between  the  trivial  and  the  profound,  there  is,  of 
course,  great  possibility  of  error. 

The  Alexandrines  fell  into  this  error,  but  this  must 
not  blind  us  to  their  great  merit.  They  were  allegorising 
when  they  found  in  the  number  three  hundred  and 
eighteen,  the  number  of  the  servants  of  Abraham,  a 
type  of  Christ.  But  they  were  also  allegorising  when 
they  said  that  God  is  Spirit  and  not  matter,  or  when 
they  said  that  the  presence  of  Christ  in  the  Eucharist 


42     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND    PRESENT 

is  not  corporeal.  The  fact  is  that  many  of  us  are 
allegorists  without  knowing  it.  And  we  may  admire 
the  hard  fate  of  the  Alexandrines.  The  trivialities  of 
their  symbolism  were  found  interesting  and  edifying, 
were  eagerly  caught  up  by  the  Church  and  lived  on  till 
the  other  day.  Their  noble  evangelical  spiritualism, 
except  as  regards  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  was  re- 
jected by  the  Church,  was  recovered  only  by  a  few,  and 
only  after  a  bitter  struggle.  We  forget  that  this  too  is 
Allegorism  and  Alexandrinism. 

The  working  rule  of  Allegorism  was  that  Scripture 
contains  three  senses,  the  literal,  the  moral,  and  the 
spiritual,  and  that  many  passages  possess  all  three. 
Origen  added  to  this  rule  another,  that  many  passages 
have  no  historical  truth  at  all,  because  in  the  literal 
sense  they  contain  impossibilities.  Such  were  the  whole 
account  of  Creation  and  the  Fall,  many  precepts  of  the 
Law,  and  some  even  of  the  Gospel — for  instance,  the 
command  to  pluck  out  the  offending  eye.  The  main 
fault  of  these  rules  is  just  that  they  are  rules.  All 
language  descriptive  of  spiritual  experience  is  meta- 
phorical, and  hals  more  senses  than  one.  But  when  we 
set  to  work  upon  a  text  with  the  conviction  that  the 
more  erroneous  or  the  more  trivial  it  may  appear,  the 
more  profound  must  be  its  significance,  or  that  the  New 
Testament  must  lie  hid,  not  merely  in  germ  but  in 
actual  detail  in  the  Old,  great  errors  are  at  hand. 
They  are  errors  not  of  substance,  because  the  rash 
Allegorist  finds  only  what  he  already  possesses,  but 
they  confuse  to  an  intolerable  degree  our  knowledge  of 
the  past. 

Yet  Allegorism  rests  on  profound  truths,  that  "  the 
letter  killeth,  but  the  spirit  giveth  life,"  and  that  "  nothing 


THE   SCHOOL   OF   ALEXANDRIA       43 

unworthy  ought  to  be  believed  of  God."  It  insisted 
that  the  whole  world  was  made  by  God  and  bears  His 
sign-manual.  Further  it  maintained  that  the  Bible,  being 
the  creation  of  the  same  author  as  Nature,  must  neces- 
sarily exhibit  the  same  method  of  workmanship  ;  this 
was  the  thought  from  which  sprang  Butler's  Analogj'. 
Yet  again  that  the  Old  Testament  is  not  against  the 
New,  but  is  part  of  one  Divine  scheme  for  the  educa- 
tion of  the  world,  and  contains  previsions,  foretastes, 
shadows  of  the  better  things  to  come.  These  are  great 
thoughts,  however  they  may  have  been  misapplied. 

But  we  must  pick  up  our  thread  again,  and  consider 
in  sufficient  detail  the  four  uses  to  which  Allegorism 
was  applied. 

Its  apologetic  worth  varies  very  greatly  with  the 
character  of  the  objections  against  which  it  was  directed. 
The  homehness  of  Scripture,  which  shocked  Origen, 
does  not  shock  us.  We  see  no  difficulty  in  the  wells  of 
water  which  Caleb  gave  his  daughter,  or  in  the  cakes 
which  Abraham  baked,  or  in  the  touching  story  of  Ruth. 
Our  taste  has  been  formed  upon  the  Bible,  and  we 
condemn  the  vapid  Byzantine  rhetoric,  which  had  no 
dignity  because  it  had  no  simplicity.  But  many  of  the 
doubts  urged  by  the  Gnostics,  or  by  the  keen  and 
haughty  Celsus,  were  of  a  very  different  type.  Among 
the  chief  was  that  arising  out  of  the  justice  of  God. 
They  were  all  answered  by  Allegorism,  but  we  need  not 
dwell  upon  them  here,  as  we  must  recur  to  the  more 
important  later  on. 

Neither  must  we  linger  on  the  second  use.  Types 
and  prophecies  undoubtedly  exist  in  Scripture,  though 
our  modern  scholarly  ways  teach  us  to  be  much  more 
discreet  in  their  discovery  and  application.     Few  will 


44     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

doubt  that  Isaiah  foresaw  the  advent  of  our  Lord, 
though  but  darkly  as  in  a  glass.  The  Alexandrines — 
Origen  more  especially — were  carried  much  too  far  in 
their  desire  to  make  all  Scripture  eloquent  of  Christ. 
It  was  the  fault  of  their  time  ;  after  all  it  was  not  a 
grave  fault,  and  what  we  have  said  upon  the  subject 
will  amply  suffice. 

A  much  more  serious  question,  arising  out  of  the 
belief  in  the  unity  of  Scripture,  is  that  which  concerns 
the  relation  of  the  Law  to  the  Gospel.  It  lies  at  the 
bottom  of  much  of  the  religious  confusion  of  our  own 
times. 

In  what  sense  was  the  Law  abolished  ?  Is  the 
Gospel  itself  a  law  ?  Is  obedience  to  a  law,  which  as 
yet  we  imperfectly  comprehend,  a  duty,  a  virtue,  and  a 
help  ?  Or  are  we  to  regard  all  true  believers  as  a  law 
unto  themselves,  or  as  so  informed  by  the  Holy  Spirit 
that  they  need  no  rule  and  see  for  themselves  exactly 
what  they  ought  to  do  and  believe  ? 

The  question  is  by  no  means  an  idle  one.  Epipha- 
nius,  the  Gnostic,  taught  that  the  precept  makes  the 
sin.  Nature  is  not  chaste  ;  or,  as  he  expressed  it,  "the 
vine  welcomes  both  the  sparrow  and  the  thief."  Since 
his  time  many  so-called  Christians  have  looked  upon 
the  Gospel  freedom  as  implying  moral  anarchy.  This 
is  putting  the  difficulty  in  its  most  brutal  shape,  but  it 
has  many  milder  forms.  Can  there  be  any  moral  and 
religious  worth  in  belief  in  the  Unknown,  or,  to  use 
the  common  phrases,  in  Faith  and  in  Authority  ?  Does 
the  Act  affect  the  Motive,  or,  in  other  words,  what  is 
the  value  of  good  works,  and  what  is  the  place  of 
moral  philosophy  ?  What  is  the  precise  meaning  of 
Continuity   in   the    spiritual    life  ?       Does    the    present 


THE   SCHOOL   OF   ALEXANDRIA       45 

grow  out  of  the  past,  or  are  there  breaks  and  new 
beginnings  ?  And  if  history,  both  in  the  Church  and 
in  the  individual,  is  a  development,  how  are  we  to  dis- 
tinguish between  growth  and  degeneration  ?  What  is 
Unity,  and  by  what  means  is  it  secured  ?  These  are 
crucial  questions  arising  out  of  the  connection  between 
the  Old  Testament  and  the  New.  The  answer  we  give 
them  marks  us  off  as  belonging  to  one  or  the  other  of 
the  two  great  types  of  Christianity. 

The  Alexandrines  ranged  themselves  emphatically  on 
the  side  of  authority.  They  held  that  the  Creed  itself 
was  a  law,  which  must  be  accepted  before  it  could  be 
understood,  like  the  axioms  of  metaphysics  or  the  rules 
of  a  practical  art.  The  only  difference  is  that  the 
Christian  Creed  belongs  not  to  what  Whichcote  calls 
"things  of  natural  knowledge,  or  of  first  inscription  in 
the  heart  of  man  by  God,  which  are  known  to  be  true 
as  soon  as  ever  they  are  proposed,"  but  to  revelation. 
"The  great  things  of  revealed  truth,"  Whichcote  pro- 
ceeds, "though  they  be  not  of  reason's  invention,  yet 
are  they  of  the  prepared  mind  readily  entertained  and 
received."  This  is  a  good  statement  of  the  Alexandrine 
position.  The  Christian  revelation  is  a  manifestation 
of  the  higher  reason  of  God,  and  is  possible  only 
because  it  completes  the  "  truth  of  first  inscription." 
We  could  not  have  "invented"  it,  but  the  "prepared 
mind  "  can  recognise  it.  The  mind  must  be  prepared 
by  discipline,  because  the  truth  is  largely,  indeed  funda- 
mentally, moral.  From  this  point  of  view  action  under 
discipline  becomes  of  very  high  importance. 

The  Alexandrines,  no  doubt,  took  a  strictly  legal 
view.  When  we  use  the  word  legalism  we  are  thinking 
of    the    Rabbis,   with    their    stiff,    unchanging,    slavish 


46     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

mechanism.  But  law,  as  it  is  understood  by  Clement, 
or  Origen,  or  Hooker,  or  Ruskin,  is  a  noble  thing,  the 
guide  of  aspiration,  the  bond  of  unity,  the  nurse  of 
freedom.  Let  us  see  what  Origen  says  of  the  different 
kinds  of  law. 

Take  first  the  Law  of  Nature.  St.  Paul  says  in  the 
words  of  the  Psalmist,  "There  is  none  that  doeth  good, 
no,  not  one."  "  What,"  asks  Origen,  "  was  there  none 
who  sheltered  a  stranger,  or  gave  bread  to  the  hungry, 
or  clothed  the  naked,  or  rescued  the  innocent  from  the 
grip  of  the  oppressor  ?  I  do  not  think  that  the  Apostle 
Paul  wished  to  make  so  incredible  a  statement."  He 
goes  on  to  say  that,  though  the  heathen  are  excluded 
from  the  Beatific  Vision,  they  cannot  wholly  lose  "  the 
glory,  honour,  and  peace  of  good  works." 

The  Law  of  Moses  Origen  held  to  have  been  a 
means  of  grace,  adapted  to  the  times  though  imperfect, 
transitional  in  form  but  not  in  substance,  absorbed  and 
transfigured  but  not  abolished  by  the  Gospel.  It  corre- 
sponds to  a  stage  of  the  Christian  experience,  that  of 
"  washing."  Men  must  be  washed  before  they  can  be 
clothed,  before  they  can  "  put  on  Christ."  "  Let  Moses, 
therefore,  wash  thee.  ...  It  is  the  law  of  God  which 
washes  thee,  cleanses  thy  filth,  removes,  if  thou  wilt  hear 
it,  the  stains  of  thy  sins." 

Even  the  Gospel  itself  is  constantly  spoken  of  as 
a  Law.  Origen  distinguishes  three  stages  of  Justifica- 
tion. The  first  is  that  of  Faith,  which,  if  accompanied 
by  Repentance,  receives  pardon  through  Baptism.  The 
second  is  that  of  "  imputed  righteousness,"  of  imperfect 
obedience,  of  hope  on  man's  side  and  on  God's.  The 
third  is  real  and  true  righteousness  ;  the  man  is  right- 
eous, a  son  and  no  longer  a  servant,  a  man  not  a  babe, 


THE   SCHOOL   OF   ALEXANDRIA       47 

and  no  further  imputation  is  needed  ;  hope  has  given 
way  to  love. 

To  the  Alexandrines,  as  to  all  Platonists,  Law  is 
Freedom.  Freedom  is  not  self-assertion,  but  inner  con- 
formity to  the  perfect  will  of  God. 

Origen  is  more  practical  than  Clement,  and  did  not 
believe  that  man  can  become  absolutely  one  spirit  with 
the  Lord  in  this  short  hfe.  Clement,  as  was  said  above, 
is  more  mystical.  His  "  Gnostic,"  or  finished  Christian, 
lives  in  uninterrupted  communion  with  the  Saviour, 
and  needs  no  helps,  forms,  or  symbols  of  any  kind, 
except  the  Eucharist.  But  there  is  a  very  broad  dis- 
tinction between  Clement  and  some  of  the  later  mystics. 
He  would  have  said  that  the  Gnostic  must  still  obey, 
for  the  sake  of  others  if  not  for  his  own.  Though  he 
needs  no  forms  others  do,  and  therefore  he  will  still 
go  to  church,  hear  sermons,  say  his  prayers,  and 
observe  the  customary  regulations.  The  Body  must 
care  for  all,  the  weak  as  well  as  the  strong,  and  the 
saint  is  still  a  member  of  the  Body.  Clement  was  no 
Quietist,  nor  would  he  have  broken  unity  for  a  form 
which  his  brethren  valued. 

The  Alexandrines  did  not  differ  from  the  Church  of 
their  time  in  their  notion  of  unity,  or  in  their  belief  that 
all  Christians  were  not  free.  Where  they  did  differ 
was  in  thinking  that  all  Christians  ought  to  become  free, 
and  that  the  Church  ought  to  leave  much  more  space 
for  freedom. 

AUegorism  was  also  used  as  an  engine  of  prophecy, 
and  this  was  its  most  dangerous  application.  The 
Alexandrines  craved  more  light  than  God  has  been 
pleased  to  give,  and  set  to  work  to  manufacture  it  ;  or 
rather,  we  should  say,  to  extort  hidden  mysteries  from 


48     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

Scripture  by  means  of  exegesis.  Origen  regarded  the 
commentator  as  qualified  for  his  task  by  a  special 
inspiration.  There  is  much  truth  in  this.  "  Scripture," 
it  has  been  said,  "  can  only  be  understood  by  the  aid  of 
the  same  Spirit  by  whom  it  was  given."  The  scholar 
ought  to  be  a  revealer.  But  he  is  an  interpreter  of 
prophecy,  not  a  prophet.  The  prophet,  as  we  see  him 
in  Scripture,  is  one  who  has  received  a  direct  communi- 
cation from  God.  He  does  not  argue  or  reason,  he 
proclaims  what  the  Voice  has  told  him.  He  gives  from 
God  an  order,  a  judgment,  an  intimation  of  things  to 
come.  The  last  is  the  function  that  specially  belongs 
to  him.  He  was  not,  as  such,  a  preacher  or  a  teacher, 
though  the  difference  lies  not  so  much  in  the  substance 
of  the  message  as  in  the  mode  of  its  communication. 

In  the  time  of  Origen  the  Montanist  prophetism  had 
been  practically  suppressed,  and  the  gift  of  prophecy  in 
the  Church  was  very  rare.  Origen  had  never  seen  a 
prophet ;  but  he  bent  his  eyes  with  eager  curiosity 
towards  the  darkness  of  the  future.  Could  not  the 
veil  be  lifted  ?  Were  there  not  hints  in  Scripture  ? 
Might  not  scholarship  and  devotion  attain  to  at  least 
something  of  prophetic  strain  ? 

He  found  his  clue  in  the  "  Eternal  Gospel "  of  St. 
John,  and  in  the  text,  "  God  shall  be  all  in  all."  How 
far  he  was  right  in  his  interpretation  of  these  words  of 
St.  Paul  it  is  hard  to  say,  but  he  took  them  to  mean 
that  the  end  shall  be  like  the  beginning,  that  as  all 
came  from  God,  so  all  shall  return  to  God,  and  that  evil 
will  cease  to  be. 

I  need  not  here  describe  his  theory  of  Restitution  at 
length.  He  found  it  in  Scripture,  in  a  thousand  texts, 
but  he  had  previously  borrowed  it  from  Plato.     From 


THE   SCHOOL   OF   ALEXANDRIA       49 

the  Gorgias  he  had  gathered  the  behef  that  all  pain  is 
corrective  ;  by  the  Phcedrus  and  the  ReptiblichQ  had  been 
taught  that  the  soul  lived  and  sinned  before  it  came 
down  to  earth,  that  the  short  span  of  its  existence  here 
is  but  an  episode  in  its  age-long  probation,  that  the  great 
drama  goes  on  for  aeon  after  aeon,  till  at  last,  one  by 
one,  all  spirits  have  found  rest  in  the  bosom  of  God. 
All  this  Origen  held  only  as  a  speculation,  as  a  hope  or 
pious  opinion.  There  are  many  passages  where  he  ex- 
presses doubts. 

It  is  a  very  bold  and  a  very  noble  theodicy.  We 
need  not  criticise  it  in  detail.  But  one  point  involved 
is  of  such  far-reaching  importance  as  to  call  for  a  few 
remarks. 

The  belief  that  all  pain  is  corrective  is  certainly 
wrong,  and  it  is  most  singular  that  neither  Clement  nor 
Origen  perceived  this.  How  could  they,  on  this  Platonic 
theory,  account  for  the  death  of  our  Lord,  and  the 
efficacy  of  the  Cross  ?  Or  how  could  they  explain  the 
patent  fact  that  ignorance  and  hardness  are  not  only  the 
cause  but  the  effect  of  vice  ?  Origen  has  more  than  one 
fine  passage  on  the  value  of  the  deaths  of  martyrs  and 
heroes,  but  somehow  he  never  pushed  the  thought  of 
vicarious  suffering  to  a  conclusion.  The  heathen  Platon- 
ists  laughed  at  the  idea  of  an  unjust  man  being  made 
better  by  the  unmerited  suffering  of  the  just,  and  many 
Christians  are  half-ashamed  of  it.  Yet,  if  self-sacrifice 
is  not  the  chief  agent  in  moral  regeneration,  what  be- 
comes of  the  Church  ?  My  pain  may  make  me  better, 
but  why  should  I  suffer  for  others  who  can  only  be 
healed  by  their  own  pain  ?  Thus  we  lose  the  noblest 
of   all  motives   to    which    the  dullest   of  mankind  will 

respond. 

D 


50     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND    PRESENT 

The  doctrine  that  pain  is  corrective  means,  in  coarse 
language,  that  moral  evil  is  cured  by  flogging.  This  is 
so  manifestly  untrue  that  the  Church  could  never  wholly 
believe  it.  Yet  the  old  disciplinarians  came  very  near 
to  the  belief.  The  death  of  Christ,  it  was  held,  availed 
to  purchase  free  pardon  for  the  sinner  at  his  baptism, 
but  all  subsequent  misdeeds  must  be  atoned  for  by  full 
satisfaction.  Here  we  have  the  root  of  the  mediaeval 
doctrine  of  Penance  with  all  its  abuses.  Tetzel  stands 
on  the  same  ground  as  Origen. 

The  last  point  that  we  need  consider  is  the  bearing 
of  Allegorism  upon  the  doctrine  and  organisation  of  the 
Church.  On  this  field  it  rendered  its  noblest  services, 
but  within  the  limits  at  our  disposal  it  is  not  possible 
to  do  more  than  briefly  point  out  the  chief  of  them. 

Down  to  the  end  of  the  second  century  theology 
had  been  sadly  hampered  by  Stoic  materialism.  The 
soul  was  very  generally  regarded  as  possessing  shape 
and  capable  of  division.  The  Platonists,  who  hardly 
existed  in  the  first  century  and  did  not  acquire  wide 
influence  till  rather  late  in  the  second,  were  the  men  to 
whom  we  owe  the  interpretation  of  our  Lord's  words, 
"  God  is  Spirit."  Here  we  have  the  most  conspicuous 
justification  of  Clement's  love  for  philosophy.  The 
tremendous  importance  of  this  new  view — we  may  call 
it  new,  for  it  had  been  practically  lost — is  best  seen  in 
the  life  of  St.  Augustine.  The  belief  that  God  has 
neither  body  parts  nor  passions,  that  His  Spirit  is  all 
in  the  whole  and  all  in  every  part,  and  that  consequently 
it  is  not  a  bare  logical  or  mathematical  unity  but  the 
fulness  of  life,  destroyed  Gnosticism  with  its  second 
and  evil  god,  destroyed  Chiliasm,  greatly  strengthened 
the  conviction  of  the  soul's  immortality,  and  rendered 


THE   SCHOOL   OF   ALEXANDRIA       51 

it  possible  to  explain,  at  any  rate  in  some  degree,  the 
mystery  of  the  Creed.  Further  it  explained  also  the 
Church  itself,  because  it  showed  how  men  may  be  one 
with  each  other  and  with  God.  Unity  in  diversity  is  a 
great  spiritual  allegorical  truth,  and  we  owe  its  currency 
to  the  Alexandrines. 

There  were  differences  in  detail  between  Clement 
and  Origen,  but  it  may  be  said  that  they  made  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity  what  it  has  since  remained.  The 
main  task  left  to  religious  thought  was  the  definition  of 
our  Lord's  Humanity.  In  this  field  the  rather  old- 
fashioned  Platonism  of  the  Alexandrines  was  to  some 
extent  a  hindrance. 

Almost  equally  conspicuous  is  the  working  of  their 
free  spiritual  liberality  in  the  region  of  practical  theology. 
Here  Allegorism  is  what  we  term  Evangelicalism.  But 
here  they  were  ages  before  their  time. 

We  find  it  difficult  to  estimate  their  service  because 
so  little  is  known  of  the  actual  working  of  the  Church  in 
their  day.  Great  changes  were  taking  place.  Down 
to  the  time  of  Clement  there  is  good  reason  for  thinking 
that  the  Bishop  of  Alexandria  had  been  elected  and 
consecrated  by  the  city  rectors.  The  liturgy  was 
assuming  its  final  shape,  and  the  power  of  the  priest- 
hood was  becoming  much  greater.  We  can  see  that 
Clement's  use  of  philosophy  excited  violent  opposition 
among  those  whom  he  calls  "  Orthodoxasts,"  and  Origen 
also  was  clearly  not  in  harmony  with  "  the  simpler 
brethren."  In  later  times  the  hatred  of  Origen  was 
justified  mainly  by  his  Universalism  and  his  Subordi- 
natianism,  but  in  his  own  day  there  were  many  other 
causes  of  dislike  which  it  is  not  difficult  to  find.  The 
Alexandrine  attitude  was  at  once  too  spiritual  and  too 


52     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND    PRESENT 

conservative  for  the  drift  of  the  time,  which  ran  strongly 
in  the  direction  of  stricter  disciphne  and  closer  de- 
finition. 

At  what  date  was  the  Epiclesis,  or  Invocation  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  in  the  prayer  of  consecration  altered  ?  If 
we  could  only  answer  this  question,  we  should  gain  a 
great  accession  of  light. 

The  ancient  Egyptian  Church  Order  has,  ''  We  pray 
Thee  instantly  that  Thou  send  Thy  Holy  Ghost  upon  the 
sacrifice  of  this  Christian  Church."  Equally  broad  is  the 
language  of  the  old  Nestorian  Liturgy  of  SS.  Adcetts  and 
Maris.  But  in  the  great  bulk  of  the  Eastern  Liturgies 
the  Holy  Spirit  is  invoked  to  "  make "  the  bread  and 
wine  the  Body  and  Blood  of  our  Lord.  And  by  the 
end  of  the  fourth  century,  Jerome,  a  Western,  says 
of  the  priest  that  he  conficit  corpus  Domini.  The  Body 
is  material,  and  it  is  "  made "  by  the  celebrant,  no 
longer  by  the  Holy  Spirit.  Here  we  discern  two  very 
important  steps  in  advance.  The  early  Church  had 
been  content  to  take  our  Lord's  words  as  they  found 
them,  without  any  attempt  at  definition. 

Origen  found  the  doctrine  of  the  Corporeal  Presence 
in  existence,  but  he  could  not  accept  it,  partly  because 
he  held  a  low  view  of  our  Lord's  Humanity,  which  he 
regarded  as  little  more  than  the  veil  of  His  Divinity, 
partly  because  his  Platonism  made  any  approach  to 
materialism  impossible.  Like  Clement  he  held  a  purely 
spiritual  view  of  our  Lord's  presence  in  the  Eucharist. 
But  what  we  should  notice  is  that  this  Evangelicalism — 
shall  we  call  it  so  ? — is  part  of  his  philosophy,  of  his 
Allegorism.  He  does  not  deny  ''the  common  explana- 
tion," nor  does  it  make  him  furious.  But  he  relegates 
it  to  "the  lower  life."     The  body  of  the  Church  holds 


THE   SCHOOL   OF   ALEXANDRIA       53 

it,  and  may  hold  it,  but  the  educated  Christian  may 
think  otherwise.  He  claims  for  himself  and  for  others 
full  enjoyment  of  the  liberty  which  God  has  given,  yet 
without  a  thought  of  breaking  communion. 

Another  grave  question  was  that  of  Penance  and 
Absolution.  The  old  discipline  of  public  confession 
in  the  Church  had  been  found  to  be  more  than  men 
would  endure,  as  we  can  well  understand.  People 
were  beginning  to  ask  whether  it  was  really  necessary 
that  every  peccadillo  should  be  laid  bare  before  an 
assembly  in  which  there  would  be  many  rigorists  and 
possibly  some  enemies.  Hence  there  grew  up  among 
the  wealthy  a  custom  of  attaching  to  their  households 
a  spiritual  adviser,  as  the  rich  heathen  had  a  domestic 
philosopher.  These  directors  were  often  laymen,  but 
often  also  priests,  and  a  priest  in  this  position  would 
be  naturally  disposed  to  give  absolution  on  his  own 
authority,  and  on  his  own  private  knowledge.  Origen 
complains  that  there  were  many  priests  in  his  own  time 
who  ventured  to  forgive  even  mortal  sins  "  by  their  own 
prayer."  Not  only  did  he  oppose  private  absolution, 
but  he  held,  like  Cyprian,  and  like  Wyclif,  that  the 
"  power  of  the  keys "  depended  on  the  worthiness  of 
the  minister. 

All  this  was  too  spiritual,  too  conservative  for  the 
Church  of  his  time.  Men  took  from  Origen  what  they 
liked,  and  reviled  him  fiercely  for  what  they  did  not  like. 
They  could  not  understand  how  he  should  be  against 
them  on  some  points,  when  he  had  been  with  them, 
heart  and  soul,  in  others.  He  seemed  to  be  not  only 
an  opponent  but  a  traitor. 

Now  what  lesson  are  we  to  draw  from  the  Alex- 
andrines ?     Perhaps  the  reader  will  be  best  pleased  if 


54     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

he  is  left  to  draw  his  own.  There  are  points  on  which 
we  are  all  in  deep  agreement  with  them,  points  on 
which,  for  one  reason  or  another,  everybody  will  be 
against  them.     Yet  a  few  inferences  may  be  suggested. 

The  first  is  that  we  can  no  more  go  back  to  the 
time  of  Origen  than  we  can  to  that  of  Pope  Innocent 
III.  Theology  has  been  immensely  changed  by  the 
Aiigustinian  doctrine  of  Grace,  and  by  Anselm's  doc- 
trine of  the  Atonement,  which,  with  all  its  defects,  was 
an  abiding  gain  to  religious  thought ;  and  our  practical 
problems  are  not  the  same  as  those  of  Origen. 

A  second  is  the  vital  necessity  of  free  thought — free 
not  because  it  is  wilful,  not  because  it  is  built  on  alien 
premises,  but  because  it  has  risen  with  Christ  and  can 
see  all  things  as  they  are  in  Him.  Two  great  marks  of 
free  thought  are  that  it  is  not  contentious,  and  that  it 
makes  for  unity.  It  springs  from  faith,  it  is  widened 
by  discipline,  and  it  is  blessed  with  unction, 

A  third  is  that  of  all  symbols  it  may  be  said  ''  the 
best  of  this  kind  are  but  shadows."  As  shadows  they 
are  true,  yet  but  shifting  and  impermanent.  They  have 
a  spiritual  meaning  ;  we  do  not  invent  it  ;  but  they  are 
helps  which  always  tend  to  become  hindrances  as  we 
advance  towards  the  realities.  "  They  shall  perish,  but 
Thou  shalt  endure." 

Lastly,  may  we  say  that  one  of  the  chief  lessons  that 
the  Alexandrines  have  to  teach  us  is  to  be  found  in  that 
doctrine  of  reserve  which  Englishmen  incline  to  regard 
with  suspicion  and  even  with  abhorrence  ?  We  are  a 
political  race,  talking  publicly  about  everything,  inclined 
to  regulate  everybody's  opinion,  waxing  hot  against  con- 
tradiction, and  using  adjectives  of  absurd  intensity.  We 
could  not  get  on  at  all  in  private  life  unless  we  agreed 


THE   SCHOOL   OF   ALEXANDRIA       55 

sometimes  "  to  banish  politics."  The  Alexandrines 
proposed  to  banish  religious  differences,  and  let  every 
good  Christian  enjoy  a  sphere  of  liberty  in  his  own 
inmost  convictions.  They  thought  it  not  only  right, 
but  quite  natural,  that  one  man  should  be  High  Church, 
and  another  Low.  But  they  knew  that  this  reign  of 
tolerance  could  not  endure,  if  each  was  to  flaunt  his 
views  in  the  face  of  his  neighbour. 

One  day  all  differences  will  be  composed  in  the 
light  of  the  eternal  day.  Meantime  the  Church  is  richer 
and  more  truly  one  for  embracing  in  her  Catholic  bosom 
every  aspect  of  the  infinite  truth.  All  aspects  are  partial, 
but  aspects  of  truth  can  never  be  really  antagonistic. 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE  AGE  OF  COUNCILS 

By  THE  Rev.  G.   A,  SCHNEIDER,  M.A. 

The  fourth  and  fifth  centuries  form  an  important  epoch 
in  the  history  of  Christian  thought,  for  they  are  the  age 
of  Creeds  and  of  General  Councils.  During  this  period 
the  great  doctrines  of  the  Trinity  and  the  Incarnation, 
hitherto  partially  apprehended  and  tentatively  formulated 
by  leading  teachers,  were  more  fully  developed.  And 
since  the  need  for  accurate  definition  of  Christian  truth 
had  come  to  be  more  strongly  felt,  General  Councils  of 
the  Church  were  held,  at  which  these  doctrines  were 
embodied  in  authoritative  Creeds.  In  this  work  Eastern 
Christendom  took  the  principal  share. 

Christianity  is  the  Revelation  of  God  in  the  Person 
of  Jesus  Christ.  Christ  is  not  merely  the  Teacher, 
not  merely  the  Founder,  not  merely  the  Example,  but 
Christianity  is  based  on  His  Person,  is  inseparable  from 
it — indeed,  He  constitutes  Christianity.  Accordingly  the 
Church  felt  from  the  first  that  the  Person  of  the  Lord 
had  a  unique  significance.  The  first  duty  of  the  dis- 
ciple was  allegiance  to  Him  ;  the  secret  of  strength  was 
union  with  Him  ;  the  life  obtained  through  Him  was 
more  than  human  Ufe.  Thus  the  Lord's  divinity  was 
from  the  beginning  the  guiding  principle  of  the  Church. 
"  Jesus  is  Lord,"  was  the  first  Christian  confession.     In 

the  thought  of  the  early  Christians  Christ,  though  born 

56 


THE   AGE   OF   COUNCILS  57 

into  this  world  as  one  of  our  race,  was  far  exalted  above 
every  creature. 

Next  to  this,  there  was  another  fundamental  prin- 
ciple, one  which  the  Church  had  inherited  from  Judaism, 
one  which  in  view  of  the  surrounding  heathenism  it  was 
constantly  called  upon  to  assert  and  to  maintain,  namely, 
the  unity  of  God. 

The  difficulty  was  soon  felt  of  reconciling  with 
each  other  these  two  principles,  the  divinity  of  Christ 
and  the  unity  of  God.  If  Christ  is  in  the  fullest  sense 
a  divine  being,  are  there  not  two  Gods  ?  How  then 
can  the  charge  of  polytheism  be  avoided?  The  problem 
might  be  approached  from  two  different  sides,  and 
two  opposite  forms  of  error  were  possible,  both  of 
which  occurred  in  the  early  Church.  On  the  one  hand, 
a  rationalizing  tendency  was  at  work  which  endeavoured 
to  maintain  the  unity  of  God  by  denying  to  Christ 
divinity  in  the  highest  sense,  regarding  Him  as  a  man 
in  whom  a  divine  power  dwelt,  and  who  was  raised  to 
divine  honour  because  of  His  obedience  to  the  Father's 
will.  Such  was  the  Ebionite  view.  On  the  other  hand, 
a  mystic  tendency  was  at  work  which  sought  to  main- 
tain the  unity  of  God  by  denying  the  personal  distinction 
between  Father  and  Son,  so  that  Father  and  Son  are 
not  two  separate  Persons,  but  two  successive  manifesta- 
tions of  the  One  divine  Person.  This  was  the  view  of 
the  Sabellians. 

Both  of  these  extremes  were  condemned  as  heresies, 
yet  the  teaching  within  the  Church  itself  was  still 
indeterminate.  Many  problems  were  still  unsolved  con- 
cerning Christ's  relation  to  the  Father.  If  Christ  is  the 
Son  of  God,  what  is  the  nature  of  this  Sonship  ?  Had 
the  Son  a  beginning  ?     If  not,  how  can   He  be  Son  at 


58     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

all  ?  And  if  He  had  a  beginning,  does  not  this  imply 
that  He  must  have  been  created,  and  is  He  not  then  a 
creature  ?  On  these  questions  the  Church  of  the  first 
three  centuries  gave  no  clear  answer.  Not  indeed  that 
the  Church  v^^as  heretical,  for  there  is  a  broad  line  of 
distinction  between  heresies  and  defective  stages  of 
Christian  knowledge.  The  early  Christians  felt  within 
them  the  power  of  the  new  life  which  they  had  received 
from  their  Lord  ;  they  were  filled  with  love  to  Him  ; 
they  were  ready  to  accept  all  that  the  New  Testament 
Scriptures  revealed  of  Him.  But  then  it  was  not  fully 
understood  as  yet  what  they  did  reveal,  and  so  various 
inadequate  hypotheses  were  put  forward  concerning  His 
Person. 

For  all  that,  progress  was  made  by  Christendom  at 
large  in  the  apprehension  of  this  doctrine.  Some  of  the 
difficulties  were  cleared  up  by  the  ante-Nicene  Fathers. 
Tertullian  (about  200  A.D.),  who  was  the  first  writer  to 
use  the  word  "  Trinity,"  was  the  first  also  who  taught 
expressly  that  tripersonality  belongs  to  the  one  God  as 
He  is  in  Himself.  The  Son  is  of  the  same  essence  as 
the  Father,  and  Tertullian  compares  their  relation  to 
each  other  with  that  of  the  tree  to  the  root,  the  ray  to 
the  sun,  the  river  to  the  fountain.  Yet  Tertullian  falls 
short  of  the  full  truth.  The  Word  of  God,  the  second 
Person  of  the  Trinity,  is  with  him  at  first  the  impersonal 
reason  of  God  ;  He  does  not  emerge  into  separate  per- 
sonality till  the  work  of  creation  is  to  commence.  Thus 
the  Trinity  is  not  one  of  essence,  but  merely  an  eco- 
nomic Trinity.  Not  long  afterwards  Origen  (about  230 
A.D.)  cleared  up  the  significance  of  the  generation  of  the 
Son  by  the  Father,  showing  that  it  does  not  denote  any 
definite  act,  either  in  time  or  before  time,  but  an  eternal 


THE   AGE   OF   COUNCILS  59 

relation.  From  all  eternity,  and  to  all  eternity,  the  Son 
has  His  being  of  the  Father,  just  as  the  will  proceeds 
from  the  mind,  and  the  brightness  from  the  light.  And 
it  is  erroneous  to  say  that  "  there  was  ever  when  the 
Son  was  not."  But  side  by  side  with  this  Origen  holds 
the  subordination  of  the  Son.  The  generation  of  the 
Son  is  not  by  necessity  of  nature,  but  by  the  will  of  the 
Father  ;  and  hence  the  Father  alone  is  in  the  highest 
sense  God,  while  the  Son  is  "  the  second  God,"  subor- 
dinate to  the  Father,  and  in  some  not  clearly  defined 
sense  inferior  to  His  original. 

By  the  close  of  the  third  century  Western  Christen- 
dom for  the  most  part  had  come  to  emphasize  the  unity 
between  Father  and  Son,  while  partially  obscuring  the 
distinction  of  Persons.  Eastern  Christians,  on  the  other 
hand,  following  the  last-mentioned  side  of  Origen's  teach- 
ing, tended  to  some  theory  of  subordination,  regarding 
Christ  as  a  kind  of  secondary  God.  The  Sabellian 
controversy,  which  had  lately  disturbed  the  East,  had 
aroused  the  fear  lest  an  acknowledgment  of  the  unity 
of  essence  between  Father  and  Son  might  lead  to  a 
denial  of  their  personal  distinction. 

What  was  needed,  in  order  that  the  Church  should 
advance  to  a  firmer  grasp  of  the  truth,  was  that  the  con- 
ception of  deity  should  be  revised.  Christianity  is 
indeed  a  monotheistic  religion,  but  its  monotheism  is  not 
the  same  as  that  of  Judaism,  or  of  Mohammedanism,  or 
of  ancient  philosophy.  In  the  latter  systems  God  is 
conceived  of  as  a  far-off  Supreme,  enthroned  in  in- 
accessible mystery,  absolutely  one  and  absolutely 
simple,  with  an  insurmountable  barrier  separating  His 
creatures  from  Him.  There  can  be  no  real  union 
between    such    a   God   and   man ;    no  place   is   left   on 


6o     THE    CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

such  a  view  for   the   Christian   doctrine   of  the    Incar- 
nation. 

Our  God,  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  single,  but  not  a 
simple  God  ;  His  being  is  complex.  God  is  love,  and 
love  is  not  merely  one  aspect  of  the  divine  essence,  but 
that  essence  in  its  fulness.  And  if  God  is  love,  He 
must  have  lived  an  inner  life  of  love  ;  He  must  from 
eternity  love  Himself  in  the  threefold  relation  of  Father, 
Son,  and  Holy  Spirit.  Thus  there  is,  and  ever  has 
been,  a  society  within  the  Godhead.  Hence,  not  only 
the  Father,  but  the  Son  and  the  Holy  Spirit,  existed 
eternally.  The  generation  of  the  Son  by  the  Father  is 
not  a  matter  of  will,  as  though  the  Father  had  chosen 
to  have  a  Son,  but  of  nature.  This  conception  of  God, 
we  may  remark,  is  not  the  outcome  of  metaphysics,  it 
is  a  deduction  from  the  revelation  recorded  in  Holy 
Scripture. 

But  converts  to  the  Church  during  the  early 
centuries,  whether  they  came  from  Judaism  or  from 
Heathenism,  brought  with  them  a  conception  of  the 
deity  at  variance  with  the  Christian  idea.  Not  till  this 
was  given  up  could  Christian  thought  advance.  And 
Arianism,  which  based  its  entire  system  on  this  non- 
Christian  conception  of  God,  and  which  caused  a  stir 
throughout  the  whole  of  Christendom,  rendered  the 
Church  the  great  indirect  service  of  compelling  it  to 
reconsider  and  remodel  its  idea  of  divine  unity. 

Arianism  arose  about  318  A.D.  at  Alexandria,  where 
Arius  was  a  presbyter.  He  was  a  man  of  high  character, 
and  had  been  a  pupil  of  the  venerated  martyr,  Lucian 
of  Antioch.  His  doctrinal  system  started  from  the 
belief  in  one  God,  who  is  alone  ingenerate,  alone 
eternal,   alone   unchangeable — and   who   is  far  exalted 


THE   AGE   OF   COUNCILS  6i 

above  all  creatures.  As  to  the  Person  of  Christ,  Arius 
rightly  felt  that  He  must  have  had  a  real  existence 
before  the  world,  independent  of  the  Incarnation.  But 
wishing  to  avoid  on  one  side  the  Sabellian  confusion  of 
persons,  and  on  the  other  heathen  polytheism,  he  denied 
to  Christ  divinity  in  the  highest  sense.  The  Father 
alone  is  ingenerate,  the  Son  is  generated,  and  Arius 
refused  to  allow  any  difference  between  generation  and 
creation.  The  Arian  Christ  is  then  the  created  Word 
(Logos)  of  God,  the  highest  of  creatures,  created  before 
the  world,  through  whom  all  other  things  were  made — 
but  still  a  creature.  He  is  not  from  eternity,  and 
"  there  was  when  He  was  not."  Being  a  creature.  He 
depends,  like  any  other  creature,  on  divine  grace.  He 
is  morally  changeable  for  good  or  for  evil.  Sinless  He 
was,  but  He  might  have  sinned  like  us.  Arius  was 
indeed  willing  to  allow  to  Christ  the  title  "  God  "  and 
"  Son  of  God,"  but  not  in  the  primary  sense  of  like- 
ness to  the  Supreme.  If  Arius  degraded  the  divinity 
of  Christ,  he  degraded  His  humanity  even  more.  He 
assigned  to  Him  a  human  body,  but  neither  human 
soul  nor  human  spirit,  the  place  of  the  latter  being 
taken — as  he  supposed — by  the  Logos. 

Thus  the  Arian  Christ  is  neither  truly  God  nor  truly 
man,  but  a  being  not  unlike  a  heathen  demigod,  and 
Arius,  who  began  by  establishing  the  unity  of  God, 
ended  by  reintroducing  polytheism.  Such  a  Christ, 
who  is  neither  truly  divine  nor  truly  human,  cannot 
bridge  the  gulf  between  God  and  man,  cannot  bring  the 
latter  into  fellowship  with  the  Almighty,  nor  be  the 
giver  of  life  and  immortality. 

Alexander,  the  Bishop  of  Alexandria,  summoned  a 
synod  of  Egyptian  bishops  about   321    A.D.,   at  which 


62     THE    CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

Arius  was  condemned  and  excommunicated.  But  he 
was  too  much  in  earnest  to  desist  from  his  teaching, 
so  he  moved  to  Caesarea,  and  there  found  not  a  httle 
sympathy  among  the  bishops  of  Syria  and  Asia,  many 
of  whom,  hkc  himself,  had  been  pupils  of  Lucian  of 
Antioch. 

The  controversy  was  widespread,  and  caused  the 
greatest  excitement,  so  that  when  Constantine  became 
sole  ruler  of  the  Roman  Empire  in  323  A.D.,  he  felt  it 
necessary  to  intervene.  Not  that  Constantine  personally 
understood  the  gravity  of  the  questions  discussed,  but 
he  was  alarmed  to  see  the  East  torn  asunder  by  the 
dispute.  After  some  abortive  negotiations,  he  conceived 
the  idea  of  holding  a  General  Council,  to  deal  both 
with  this  and  with  other  questions  which  needed  to  be 
settled.  During  the  third  century  local  councils  had 
frequently  been  the  resource  in  controversies  which 
agitated  one  part  of  the  Church.  It  seemed  natural 
then  to  suggest  an  QEcumenical  Council  as  a  means  of 
settling  a  controversy  which  agitated  the  whole  Church. 
This  Council  met  at  Nicaea  in  the  summer  of  a.d.  325. 

We  cannot  linger  over  the  external  features  of  the 
Council.^  SufHce  it  to  say  that  318  bishops,  with  a 
number  of  presbyters  and  deacons,  were  assembled,  and 
that  these  came  from  all  parts  of  the  Empire,  and  a 
few  even  from  beyond  its  confines,  such  as  Theophilus 
the  Goth  and  John  the  Persian.  Eusebius  compares 
the  gathering  with  the  Day  of  Pentecost,  when  devout 
men  of  every  nation  under  heaven  were  convened,  or 
with  a  garland  of  flowers  woven  together  as  a  bond  of 
peace.      By    far    the    greater    number   were    Easterns, 

1  These  have  been  ably  described  in  Stanley's  "History  of  the  Eastern 
Church,"  Lectures  II.  to  V. 


THE   AGE   OF   COUNCILS  63 

though  seven  bishops  came  from  the  West,  while 
Sylvester,  the  Bishop  of  Rome,  v^ho  was  too  old  to 
come  himself,  was  represented  by  two  presbyters.  There 
was  a  peculiar  brightness  and  hopefulness  resting  over 
the  Council.  It  was  barely  twenty  years  since  the  last 
and  most  terrible  of  the  persecutions,  that  of  Diocletian, 
had  swept  over  the  Church  ;  several  of  the  bishops 
present  bore  the  marks  of  the  sufferings  which  they 
had  undergone  for  the  faith.  And  now  the  Emperor 
had  bowed  before  the  Cross  of  Christ,  and  the  bishops 
of  Christendom  were  assembled  at  the  summons  and 
under  the  protection  of  that  very  power  which  had 
hitherto  been  the  great  enemy  of  the  Church,  and  its 
most  formidable  rival  in  claiming  the  allegiance  of  man- 
kind. We  cannot  wonder  that  to  some  it  seemed  as 
though  the  kingdoms  of  the  world  were  already  become 
the  kingdom  of  God. 

But  what  was  the  attitude  of  the  Council  towards 
Arianism  ?  The  pronounced  Arian  bishops  scarcely 
numbered  twenty  ;  they  were  from  Syria  and  Asia,  and 
the  most  prominent  of  their  number  was  Eusebius  of 
Nicomedia.  Hardly  more  numerous  were  the  pro- 
nounced orthodox  leaders  ;  they  included  Eustathius  of 
Antioch  and  Alexander  of  Alexandria.  With  the  latter 
was  his  young  Archdeacon,  who  was  destined  to  become 
the  most  prominent  figure,  both  at  the  Council  and  in 
the  long  warfare  which  followed  it,  the  great  Athanasius. 
Between  these  two  extremes  there  was  a  large  middle 
party.  These  were  not  Arians,  for  when  at  the  com- 
mencement of  the  proceedings  an  Arianizing  Creed  was 
presented,  it  was  angrily  rejected  by  the  Council.  But 
neither  were  they  definitely  orthodox.  They  may  best 
be    described    as    Conservatives,   that    is    to   say,   they 


64     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND    PRESENT 

wished  the  doctrine  of  the  Lord's  divinity  to  be  stated 
in  such  general  terms  as  had  sufficed  before  the  out- 
break of  the  controversy.  With  a  few  exceptions,  they 
were  not  men  of  learning,  indeed  they  scarcely  under- 
stood the  full  bearing  of  the  controversy.  Their  minds, 
too,  were  full  of  the  last  heresy  which  had  disturbed 
the  Church,  Sabellianism.  If  Arius  was  in  error,  so 
they  thought,  his  system  was  at  least  a  protest  against 
a  more  dangerous  error,  for  he  upheld  the  personal 
distinction  between  the  Father  and  the  Son,  which 
Sabellianism  obliterated.  And  to  condemn  Arianism 
might  be  to  open  the  door  to  Sabellianism.  We  may  say 
at  once  that  the  attitude  of  this  large  section  enables  us 
to  understand  why  Arianism  suffered  a  crushing  defeat 
at  the  Council,  and  yet  was  restored  a  few  years  later. 

It  was  recognised  on  all  hands  that  the  best  mode 
of  dealing  with  the  question  was  to  issue  a  new  Creed. 
It  was  not,  however,  intended  that  this  should  supersede 
any  existing  Creed,  but  merely  that  it  should  serve  as 
a  test  Creed  which  bishops  might  be  called  upon  to  sign 
whose  orthodoxy  was  called  in  question.  So  Eusebius 
of  Caesarea,  the  Church  historian,  laid  before  the  Council 
the  ancient  Creed  of  his  own  Church,  which  spoke  of 
Christ  as  "the  Word  of  God,  God  of  God,  Light  of 
Light,  Life  of  Life,  the  only  begotten  Son,  the  First- 
born of  all  Creation,  begotten  of  the  Father  before  all 
worlds,  by  whom  also  all  things  were  made,  who  for 
our  salvation  was  made  flesh,  and  lived  amongst  men." 
This  Creed  was  unanimously  adopted.  Its  scriptural 
language,  and  the  fact  that  it  necessarily  ignored  the  ques- 
tion at  issue,  made  it  acceptable  to  the  Conservative 
centre  ;  the  orthodox  leaders  could  find  no  heresy  in 
it  ;  and  even  the  Arians  were  willing  to  accept  it,  for 


THE   AGE   OF   COUNCILS  65 

it  did  not  exclude  their  views.  Its  "  God  of  God " 
was  compatible  with  the  Arian  doctrine  of  Christ  as  a 
secondary  God,  and  its  "  Firstborn  of  all  Creation  "  lent 
itself  to  the  interpretation  that  Christ  was  a  creature 
made  before  all  other  creatures.  The  unanimity  with 
which  the  Creed  was  accepted  convinced  Athanasius 
that  it  was  insufficient.  Now  that  the  vital  question 
had  been  raised,  whether  Christ  was  in  the  fullest  sense 
God  or  not,  that  question  must  not  be  left  open.  If 
the  Creed  was  to  contain  everything  that  Christian 
bishops  needed  to  confess,  it  must  be  made  to  ex- 
clude the  view  that  our  Lord  is  a  creature.  Thus  a 
number  of  additions  and  alterations  were  pressed  upon 
the  Council,  which  after  much  hesitation  were  accepted, 
and  so  the  Creed  of  Nicaea  took  shape.  In  it  the 
doctrine  of  the  Lord's  Person  was  stated  as  follows  : 
"  We  believe  in  one  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  God, 
begotten  of  the  Father,  only  begotten,  that  is  of  the 
essence  of  the  Father^  God  of  God,  Light  of  Light,  very 
God  of  very  God,  begotten  not  made,  of  one  essence  with 
the  Father."  Lower  down  the  words  "  and  was  made 
man "  were  added  to  "  was  made  flesh,"  in  order  to 
exclude  the  Arian  teaching  that  our  Lord  had  nothing 
human  but  the  body.  At  the  close  anathemas  were 
appended,  expressly  condemning  the  Arian  tenets.  The 
most  important  additions  were  the  two  clauses  "  that 
is  of  the  essence  of  the  Father  "  {rodr  ea-riv  e/c  rijf  ova-la^ 
rov  IlaT/oof)  and  "  of  one  essence  with  the  Father " 
(6fx.oov(Tio9  TU)  Uarpl).  It  was  on  the  former  of  these 
that  Athanasius  laid  the  greater  stress,  "  Ousia "  is 
a  term  derived  from  Greek  philosophy,  denoting  the 
unknown  something  which  makes  a  thing  what  we 
apprehend  it  to  be.     To  say  then   that  Christ  is  "  of 

E 


66     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

the  Ousia  of  the  Father,"  is  to  declare  that  His  existence 
is  an  essential  part  of  the  idea  of  deity.  In  other  words, 
it  is  as  essential  to  the  nature  of  God  that  there  should  be 
both  a  Father  and  a  Son,  as  that  God  should  be  just  and 
holy  and  good.  Thus  the  existence  of  the  Son  of  God 
is  no  result  of  the  Father's  will,  but  an  expression  of  the 
Father's  nature.  Next  comes  the  word  "  Homoousios," 
which  is  one  of  a  group  of  words  of  similar  form,  that 
denote  the  sharing  in  a  thing  in  common.  The  word 
then  denotes  that  the  Son  is  the  common  possessor 
with  the  Father  of  the  divine  essence.  The  word  had 
Sabellianizing  associations,  had  indeed  been  condemned 
as  Sabellianizing  by  a  previous  Council,  and  hence  was 
unwelcome  to  the  Fathers  at  Nicaea.  Nor  can  it  be 
denied  that,  as  used  at  first  by  the  orthodox  leaders,  it 
failed  to  emphasize  the  distinct  personality  of  the  Son. 
It  was  only  some  half  century  later  that  the  word  was 
understood  to  convey  the  meaning  which  we  now 
attach  to  it,  namely,  that  the  Son  possesses  all  the 
divine  attributes  which  the  Father  has. 

We  have  said  that  it  was  only  after  much  hesitation 
that  the  Council  was  prevailed  upon  to  accept  these 
alterations  in  the  Creed.  Indeed  the  bishops  were  most 
reluctant  to  insert  in  the  test  Creed  a  word  which  had 
been  condemned  by  a  previous  Synod,  and  which  was 
not  found  in  Scripture.  Gradually  the  majority  came 
to  see  that  there  was  no  other  way  of  excluding 
Arianism.  The  Arians  were  willing  to  accept  every 
Scriptural  expression  that  was  proposed,  putting  their 
own  sense  upon  it.  It  was  recognised  accordingly  that, 
when  a  definite  meaning  was  to  be  placed  on  Scripture 
passages,  it  was  necessary  to  go  outside  Scripture  for 
terms  to  define  that  meaning. 


THE   AGE   OF   COUNCILS  67 

Ultimately  they  all  signed  the  amended  Creed 
except  two  Egyptian  bishops;  and  these,  together  with 
Arius,  were  sent  into  exile  by  the  Emperor.  The  great 
Council  broke  up. 

But  the  controversy  was  not  ended.  The  policy  of 
Athanasius  had  been  a  bold  one,  however  necessary  ; 
the  majority  of  the  Conservatives  had  been  persuaded 
against  their  will,  and  a  reaction  was  inevitable.  The 
reaction  was  largely  due  to  the  Conservatives  ;  the 
Arians  were  merely  the  extreme  wing  of  those  who 
sought  to  upset  the  decisions  of  Nicaea.  It  was  not  till 
the  time  of  the  second  General  Council,  that  of  Con- 
stantinople, in  381  A.D.,  that  Arianism  was  finally 
crushed  within  the  Roman  Empire.  The  strife  was  a 
long  and  weary  one,  often  degenerating  into  personal 
retaliations ;  and  we  cannot  do  more  now  than  indicate 
some  of  its  more  important  features. 

The  great  champion  of  orthodoxy  continued  to  be 
Athanasius,  who  on  the  death  of  Alexander  in  328  A.D. 
became  Bishop  of  Alexandria,  and  who  lived  till  373 
A.D.  His  character  impressed  friends  and  foes  alike  ; 
his  career  was  as  chequered  as  a  romance.  Five  times 
was  he  sent  into  exile,  yet  from  the  Egyptian  desert  he 
ruled  his  Church.  Alone  he  stood  against  the  Emperor, 
the  Court,  the  Councils  of  his  time.  Hooker's  expres- 
sion, "the  whole  world  against  Athanasius,  and  Atha- 
nasius against  it,"  has  become  proverbial.  His  life  was 
consecrated  to  a  single  purpose,  to  witness  to  the  co- 
essential  divinity  of  the  Incarnate  Son  of  God.  Atha- 
nasius has  sometimes  been  accused  of  "fighting  in 
behalf  of  a  dogma  which,  when  riveted  on  the  Church, 
limited  its  intellectual  freedom."  But  it  has  been  well 
pointed   out  that    in    reality  he  was   the   champion    of 


68     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

personal  liberty.^  If  Christ  is  in  the  highest  sense  God, 
then  in  Him  God  has  entered  into  humanity.  Thus  , 
the  whole  race  which  Christ  took  into  organic  union  J 
with  Himself  is  ennobled.  "  He  was  made  man  that 
we  might  be  made  God."  No  one  proclaimed  to  such 
a  degree  as  Athanasius  the  dignity  and  consequent 
freedom  of  man,  which  he  had  learnt  to  see  in  the 
Incarnation  of  the  Son  of  God.  In  this  strength  he 
could  oppose  single  handed,  and  oppose  successfully,  the 
tyranny  of  the  Roman  Empire.  The  Arian  conception 
of  God,  on  the  other  hand,  fell  in  with  the  principles  of 
imperial  despotism.  The  Arian  God  is  not  the  God  of 
love,  but  a  far-off  Supreme,  unconditioned,  incom- 
prehensible to  man,  ruling  by  an  arbitrary  will  which 
does  not  appeal  to  man's  sense  of  justice  and  truth,  but 
merely  calls  for  unconditional  obedience.  It  is  | 
significant  accordingly  that  the  Arian  reaction  owed  its 
temporary  success  largely,  if  not  exclusively,  to  the 
support  of  the  Emperors,  of  Constantine  in  some 
degree,  and  in  a  larger  measure  of  his  son  Constantius 
(337  to  361  A.D.),  and  of  Valens  (364  to  378  A.D.). 

To  turn  now  to  the  actual  course  of  events,  the 
first  effort  of  Conservative  policy  was  to  obtain  the 
recall  of  the  Arian  leaders  on  the  strength  of  indefinite 
and  evasive  confessions.  This  done,  they  next  sought 
to  procure  the  exile  of  the  orthodox  leaders  on  any 
charges,  political  or  moral,  which  lent  themselves  to 
the  purpose.  It  may  seem  strange  that  Constantine 
should  have  consented  to  the  exile  of  Athanasius,  but 
probably  this  was  not  due  to  any  change  of  principle 
or  policy.  He  simply  regarded  Athanasius  as  a  trouble- 
some personage  whose  presence  disturbed — what  Con- 

1  See  Allen's  "Christian  Institutions,"  p.  307  ff. 


THE   AGE   OF   COUNCILS  69 

stantine  most  valued — the  unity  of  Christendom.  The 
third  effort,  marked  by  the  Councils  of  Antioch  (A.D. 
341),  Sardica  (A.D.  343),  Seleucia  and  Ariminum  (A.D. 
359),  was  to  replace  the  Nicene  Creed  by  some  formu- 
lary which  would  secure  the  adhesion  of  all  parties. 
But  such  an  effort  was  doomed  to  failure.  The  Ortho- 
dox would  not  consent  to  leave  the  Lord's  divinity  an 
open  question ;  hence  they  would  not  accept  any 
colourless  Creed,  however  unexceptionable  in  itself ;  no 
Creed  would  suffice  which  did  not  expressly  exclude 
Arianism.  Thus,  if  the  Arians  came  in  at  one  door, 
the  Orthodox  went  out  at  the  other  ;  and,  though  a 
number  of  Creeds  were  issued,  not  one  could  secure 
general  acceptance.  Towards  the  close  of  the  reign 
of  Constantius,  largely  owing  to  the  policy  of  the 
Emperor  and  the  intrigues  of  the  Court,  Arianism 
obtained  the  supremacy  ;  and  not  only  the  Orthodox, 
but  also  the  Conservative  bishops  were  sent  into  exile 
(a.d.  360).  But  this  supremacy  was  purely  artificial. 
In  A.D.  361  the  last  heathen  Emperor  ascended  the 
throne,  Julian  the  Apostate.  He  hated  all  parties 
within  the  Christian  Church  alike  ;  he  recalled  all  the 
exiled  bishops,  rejoicing  in  the  prospect  of  the  strife 
and  confusion  which  would  ensue.  But  confronted 
with  a  heathen  foe,  softened  too  by  the  endurance 
of  like  sufferings,  many  of  the  Christian  leaders  were 
ashamed  to  continue  the  fierce  strife.  Moreover, 
the  Conservatives  were  of  themselves  drawing  nearer 
to  the  Nicene  position  at  this  time.  Though  still 
rejecting  the  word  "  Homoousios,"  they  took  as  their 
watchword  "  Homoiousios,"  i.e.,  they  asserted  that  the 
Son  is  of  like  essence  with  the  Father.  The  old  age 
of  Athanasius  was  devoted  to  the  work  of  conciliation 


70     THE    CHURCH,  PAST   AND    PRESENT 

between  Homoousians  and  Homoioiisians,  though  their 
complete  union  was  still  retarded  by  the  Arianizing 
policy  of  the  Emperor  Valens,  who  succeeded  Julian, 
and  by  other  causes.  A  new  Nicene  party  now  came 
to  the  front,  the  chief  leaders  of  which  were  the  three 
great  Cappadocian  Fathers,  Basil  of  Caesarea,  Gregory 
of  Nazianzus,  and  Gregory  of  Nyssa.  These  had  started 
with  Homoiousian  traditions,  but  "  owed  to  Athanasius 
a  more  perfect  understanding  of  their  unaltered  belief." 
Their  great  merit  is  that  they  differentiated  the  term 
"Hypostasis"  from  '' Ousia,"  with  which  it  had  been 
synonymous  at  Nicaea.  They  used  "  Ousia  "  to  desig- 
nate the  indivisible  divine  essence,  and  "Hypostasis" 
to  denote  the  personal  modes  in  which  the  Deity  is 
realised.  In  a  word,  emphasis  was  laid  on  the  distinc- 
tion of  persons  within  the  Trinity,  along  with  unity  of 
essence  :  "  One  Ousia,  three  Hypostaseis."  This  party 
did  much  to  secure  the  general  acceptance  of  the 
Nicene  faith,  which  by  their  efforts  was  freed  from  any 
leaning  to  Sabellianism.  ^ 

When  the  Emperor  Valens  fell  in  battle  in  a.d.  378, 
the  deathblow  was  given  to  Arianism.  Theodosius,  who 
became  ruler  of  the  East,  adopted  a  vigorous  policy  in 
the  interests  of  orthodoxy.  He  expelled  Demophilus  of 
Constantinople  on  his  refusal  to  accept  the  Nicene  faith, 
and  appointed  Gregory  of  Nazianzus  in  his  place.  He 
next  summoned  a  Council  to  meet  at  Constantinople 
in  A.D.  381,  and  at  this  Nicene  orthodoxy  was  finally 
established.  The  Council  was  attended  by  one  hundred 
and  fifty  bishops,  all  of  whom  were  Easterns  ;  it  was  a 
"  General  "  Council,  therefore,  only  in  the  wider  sense 
that  its  decisions  were  ultimately  accepted  by  the  whole 
Church.     There  was  little  of  the  brightness  which  had 


THE   AGE   OF   COUNCILS  71 

characterised  the  Council  of  Nicaea  ;  all  were  thankful 
that  the  weary  strife  was  at  last  at  an  end.  The  Nicenes 
and  the  Conservatives  were  now  finally  united,  except  a 
section  of  the  latter  who  would  not  admit  the  co-essential 
divinity  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  This  latter  doctrine  had 
not  been  put  forward  at  Nicsea,  but  in  the  course  of 
time  the  orthodox  leaders  came  to  recognise  that  it  was 
a  necessary  corollary  of  the  co-essential  divinity  of  the 
Son.  Some  thirty-six  Conservative  bishops,  however, 
were  unwilling  to  acquiesce  in  this  conclusion,  and  held 
that  the  Holy  Spirit  was  divine  in  some  lower  sense 
than  the  Son.  These,  who  were  called  Macedonians  01 
Pneumatomachoi,  surrendered  their  churches  and  with- 
drew from  the  Council.  Thereupon  the  first  Canon 
was  adopted  :  a  formal  condemnation  of  all  the  Arian- 
izing  parties,  and  a  solemn  ratification  of  the  Nicene 
Creed  in  its  original  shape. 

The  Creed  drawn  up  at  Nicaea  and  ratified  at  Con- 
stantinople is  not,  however,  that  which  occurs  in  our 
Communion  Office  and  is  generally  called  "  the  Nicene 
Creed."  For  a  long  time  it  was  the  received  view  that 
the  original  Creed  of  Nicaea  was  expanded  at  the  Coun- 
cil of  Constantinople  by  the  addition  of  all  that  follows 
the  sentence,  "  I  believe  in  the  Holy  Ghost."  But 
neither  external  nor  internal  evidence  favours  this  view. 
On  the  contrary,  the  contemporary  writers  tell  us  that 
at  Constantinople  the  original  Creed  of  Nicaea  was  re- 
affirmed unchanged.  And  a  comparison  of  the  two 
Creeds  shows  us  that,  supposing  our  present  Creed  to 
be  a  revision  of  the  original  Creed  of  Nicaea,  not  only 
must  a  number  of  unnecessary  and  meaningless  changes 
have  been  made  in  the  latter,  but — what  is  inconceiv- 
able— that  clause  on  which  Athanasius  chiefly  insisted 


72     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND    PRESENT 

as  laying  down  the  Lord's  full  divinity  in  the  most 
decisive  terms,  namely,  the  clause,  "  that  is  of  the 
essence  of  the  Father,"  must  have  been  dropped  alto- 
gether. It  has  been  shewn  conclusively^  that  the  Creed 
now  called  "  the  Nicene  "  is  the  old  local  Creed  of  the 
Church  of  Jerusalem,  revised  and  enlarged  between  363 
and  374  A.D.,  the  revision  being  the  work  most  probably 
of  Cyril,  Bishop  of  Jerusalem.  It  would  seem  that 
about  this  period  a  desire  was  felt  in  Palestine  to 
furnish  the  local  Creed  with  clauses  which  would  guard 
against  the  worst  errors  then  current  on  two  great 
doctrines  of  the  faith,  the  doctrine  of  Christ  and  the 
doctrine  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  The  former  doctrine  could 
be  best  safeguarded  by  the  introduction  of  some  portion 
of  the  definition  of  Nicaea,  including  the  word  "  Homo- 
ousios  "  ;  for  the  latter  new  clauses  had  to  be  devised. 
But  how  came  this  Creed  to  be  ascribed  to  the  Council 
of  Constantinople  ?  There  are  strong  reasons  for  think- 
ing that  at  this  Council  Cyril's  orthodoxy  was  called  in 
question,  and  was  vindicated.  If  this  was  so,  what 
more  likely  than  that  Cyril  should  have  produced  the 
ancient  Creed  of  his  Church,  as  he  had  enlarged  it,  and 
that  the  Council  should  have  expressed  approval  of  this 
Creed.  After  a  lapse  of  time,  when  the  exact  circum- 
stances were  forgotten,  it  might  well  happen  that  tradi- 
tion would  regard  the  Fathers  at  Constantinople  as  the 
authors  of  a  Creed  which  they  had  approved.  At  the 
Council  of  Ephesus  in  431  A.D.  no  mention  was  made 
of  any  other  Creed  than  that  drawn  up  at  Nicaea.  At 
Chalcedon  in  451  A.D.  both  Creeds  were  read,  but, 
while  the  original  Creed  of  Nicaea  was  received  with 
enthusiasm  by  the  members  of  the  Council,  the  other 

'  See  Hort's  "Two  Dissertations,"  No.  II. 


THE   AGE   OF   COUNCILS  73 

Creed  was  evidently  still  unknown  to  a  majority  of 
them.  From  that  time  onwards,  however,  the  Revised 
Creed  of  Jerusalem  gradually  superseded  the  Creed  of 
Nicaea.  It  superseded  it  by  its  own  intrinsic  merit,  and 
by  its  greater  fitness  for  congregational  use.  The  Creed 
of  Nicaea  was  a  dogmatic  standard,  drawn  up,  not  for 
popular  use,  but  as  a  test  Creed  for  bishops,  and  its 
anathemas  made  it  unfit  for  liturgical  use.  Moreover, 
the  Revised  Creed  of  Jerusalem  is  really  a  more  com- 
plete Creed.  Not  only  does  it  expand  the  doctrine  of 
the  Holy  Spirit,  but  it  also  lays  down  the  doctrine  of 
the  two  natures  of  our  Lord  in  its  sentence,  "  And  was 
incarnate  of  the  Holy  Ghost  and  the  Virgin  Mary." 
These  facts  need  not  cause  distress  to  a  Churchman  of 
the  present  day.  The  Revised  Creed  of  Jerusalem  has 
yet  more  venerable  associations  than  the  Creed  of  Nicaea. 
It  is  the  ancient  Creed  of  the  Mother  Church  of  Chris- 
tendom, while  at  the  same  time  it  embodies  the  most 
important  portion  of  the  decisions  of  the  Fathers 
assembled  at  Nicaea. 

The  year  381  marks  a  turning-point  in  our  history. 
Till  then  the  controversies  about  the  Person  of  the 
Lord  had  been  trinitarian  ;  henceforth  they  are  christo- 
logical.  That  is  to  say,  it  was  now  recognised  by  all 
that  Christ  was  in  the  fullest  sense  a  divine  Being, 
co-essential  with  the  Father ;  but  the  question  remained 
to  be  solved  :  Granted  that  there  are  two  elements  in 
the  Person  of  the  Lord,  the  divine  and  the  human, 
what  is  the  connexion  of  these  two  with  each  other  ? 
How  can  they  be  joined  together  to  form  one  Person  ? 

But  on  a  narrowed  battle-field  the  same  tendencies 
of  thought  can  be  traced  as  in  the  earlier  period,  a 
more  rationalizing  tendency  which   laid  stress   on  the 


74     THE    CHURCH,  PAST    AND   PRESENT 

human  element  in  the  Person  of  Christ,  and  a  more 
mystic  tendency  which  laid  stress  on  the  divine  element. 
The  former  was  represented  by  the  School  of  Antioch, 
which  had  always  been  characterised  by  its  sober, 
grammatical  exegesis  of  Holy  Scripture,  and  by  the 
ethical  character  of  its  theology.  In  the  latter  the 
moral  development  of  man,  and  so  too  of  the  man 
Jesus  Christ,  was  all-important  ;  and  since  moral  de- 
velopment implies  a  free  exercise  of  moral  choice, 
freedom  of  the  will  is  essential.  But  any  mixture 
between  the  divine  and  the  human  natures  in  the 
Person  of  Christ  would  limit  the  freedom  of  the  latter. 
Accordingly  the  Antiochenes  regarded  the  union  be- 
tween these  two  natures  as  a  loose  one.  The  Logos 
has  taken  up  His  abode  in  a  perfect  man  ;  there  is  no 
real  unity,  but  only  a  moral  fellowship,  yet  so  that  the 
man  shares  in  the  honour  and  glory  which  belong  to 
the  Logos.  For  all  that,  the  School  desired  to  hold 
fast  the  oneness  of  the  Person  of  Christ,  though  they 
were  unable  to  explain  how  it  comes  about.  Pushed 
to  an  extreme,  the  teaching  of  Antioch  led  to  Nestori- 
anism,  according  to  which  the  Logos  takes  up  His 
abode  in  a  man  created  for  the  purpose,  without  com- 
munication or  interchange  of  attributes,  the  result 
being  something  which  it  is  hard  to  distinguish  from 
two  Persons. 

The  mystic  tendency  was  represented  by  the  School 
of  Alexandria,  who  regarded  the  Lord's  divine  nature 
as  the  all-important  factor  in  His  Person.  Athanasius, 
and  the  Cappadocian  Fathers  who  follow  him,  insist 
indeed  as  against  Arianism  and  Apollinarianism  on  the 
truth  that  Christ  assumed  the  totality  of  human  nature, 
for  otherwise  that  portion  of  man  which  He  did  not 


THE   AGE   OF   COUNCILS  75 

assume  would  have  no  part  in  the  redemption.  They 
affirm  the  two  natures  of  Christ ;  they  distinguish  be- 
tween the  properties  which  belong  to  the  Logos  and 
those  which  belong  to  the  flesh,.  Yet  they  speak  of 
the  two  natures  as  "  flowing  into  one  "  ;  they  say  that 
there  is  a  physical  union  between  the  two,  and  that 
the  flesh  when  mixed  with  the  divine  nature  no  longer 
continues  in  its  own  limitations  and  properties.  This 
teaching  also,  when  pushed  to  an  extreme,  becomes 
heretical.  The  result  is  Monophysitism,  according  to 
which  the  humanity  of  Christ,  after  the  union,  becomes 
merged  in  the  divinity  as  a  drop  of  water  in  the  ocean, 
and  thus  practically  disappears  altogether. 

The  controversy  arose  soon  after  428  A.D.,  in 
which  year  Nestorius,  a  presbyter  of  Antioch,  became 
Bishop  of  Constantinople.  After  his  arrival  there 
he  preached  sermons  against  the  title  "  Theotokos " 
(Mother  of  God)  as  applied  to  the  Virgin  Mary,  which 
had  come  into  frequent  use.  His  objection  was  on 
theological,  not  on  practical,  grounds.  The  Virgin, 
he  thought,  should  be  called  "  Mother  of  Jesus,"  or 
"  Mother  of  Christ,"  for  she  was  in  no  sense  the 
Mother  of  God ;  she  was  the  Mother  of  the  man  to 
whom  the  Logos  was  united.  In  a  word,  Nestorius 
objected  to  transferring  the  human  attributes  to  the 
divine  Logos  ;  he  would  not  allow,  for  example,  that 
the  Logos  participated  in  the  sufferings  of  the  human 
nature  of  Christ.  Logically  his  doctrine  implied  two 
distinct  personalities  in  the  Lord. 

Such  teaching  naturally  excited  much  opposition 
at  Constantinople.  In  the  end,  however,  Nestorius 
agreed  to  accept  the  term  "Theotokos,"  and  the  matter 
would  probably  have  been   allowed  to   rest  here,   had 


76     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

not  Cyril,  Bishop  of  Alexandria,  intervened.  Cyril  was 
a  great  theologian  who  understood  fully  the  bearings 
of  the  controversy,  but  he  was  a  man  of  violent  temper 
and  very  unscrupulous  in  the  means  which  he  employed. 
Doubtless  ecclesiastical  rivalry  between  the  ancient  see 
of  Alexandria  and  the  new  see  of  Constantinople  had  a 
share  in  inducing  Cyril  to  take  up  the  cause  of  the 
adversaries  of  Nestorius,  Before  long,  however,  he 
turned  the  controversy  into  an  attack  upon  the  whole 
School  of  Antioch.  To  settle  the  dispute  the  Emperor 
Theodosius  II.  summoned  a  General  Council  to  meet  at 
Ephesus  in  a.d.  431.  Cyril,  with  a  large  number  of 
Egyptian  bishops  and  monks,  arrived  there  first,  opened 
the  Council  without  waiting  for  the  Syrian  bishops, 
and,  supported  by  the  Bishop  of  Ephesus,  condemned 
and  deposed  Nestorius.  A  few  days  afterwards  John, 
Bishop  of  Antioch,  with  the  Syrian  bishops,  arrived. 
He  in  turn  opened  a  Council,  at  which  he  condemned 
and  deposed  Cyril.  Thus  there  were  two  rival  Councils 
confronting  each  other  ;  Cyril  had  a  majority  on  his 
side,  but  he  had  proceeded  with  utter  irregularity. 
The  Emperor  Theodosius,  having  to  decide  between 
the  two  Councils,  at  first  ratified  the  deposition,  both 
of  Nestorius  and  of  Cyril.  But  by  extensive  bribery 
at  Court  the  scale  was  turned  in  favour  of  Cyril ;  the 
Emperor  restored  him,  while  allowing  the  deposition 
of  Nestorius  to  remain  valid.  Two  years  later  peace 
was  made  between  Cyril  and  the  School  of  Antioch, 
the  former  accepting  a  Creed  drawn  up  by  the 
Antiochenes,  the  latter  agreeing  to  the  condemnation 
of  Nestorius.  The  followers  of  Nestorius  retired  into 
Persia  and  founded  a  separate  Church,  which  has 
survived  to  the  present  day. 


THE   AGE   OF   COUNCILS  77 

A    further    stage    in    the    warfare    commenced    in 
A.D.    448.      In    that    year    Eutyches,    the    head    of    a 
monastery    near    Constantinople,    an    adherent    of    the 
Alexandrian    School,    propounded    an    opinion    which 
went   beyond   that  of  his   School,    namely   that,   while 
Christ   is   of   two    natures — two   natures   entering   into 
the    Incarnation — yet    after    the    Incarnation    there    is 
only  one  nature.      Moreover,   Eutyches  held   that   the 
body  of  Christ  was  not  of  the  same  essence  (homo- 
ousios)   with    our    bodies.     For   this   teaching,    known 
as    Monophysitism,    Eutyches    was    condemned    by    a 
local  Council  under  Flavian  of  Constantinople.     Both 
Eutyches    and    Flavian    wrote    to    Leo    I.,    Bishop    of 
Rome,    who   in   his   famous    "  Letter    to    Flavian "    ex- 
pressed  approval    of   the   condemnation    of    Eutyches, 
and    proceeded    to    set    forth    in    clear    language    the 
doctrine  of  the  two  natures  in  the  Person  of  the  Lord. 
Meanwhile    Dioscorus,   who    now    held    the    Bishopric 
of    Alexandria,    a    man    of    fierce,    fanatical    character, 
who   had   the   failings  of   Cyril  without   his   greatness, 
took    up    the    cause    of    Eutyches,    and    induced    the 
Emperor  to  summon  a  Council   to    meet   at    Ephesus 
in  A.D.  449.     The  result  was  a   scene  of  unparalleled 
violence.     Dioscorus,  who   took   the   chair,  carried  all 
before  him  by  means  of  threats  and  coercion  ;  Leo's 
letter  to  Flavian  was  not  allowed  to  be  read,  his  legates 
were  pushed  aside,  and  a  decree  was  passed  in  favour 
of  Eutyches.     Thus  ended  the  Latrocinium,  or  Robber- 
Synod,   as    Leo   not   unjustly   called    it ;    and    for    the 
moment  Monophysitism  was  triumphant   in   the    East. 
But   not   for    long.     In   the   next   year  Theodosius  II. 
died,   and    his    sister    Pulcheria,   who    practically    suc- 
ceeded   him  on  the  throne,   was  determined  to  break 


78     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND    PRESENT 

the  power  of  the  Bishop  of  Alexandria.  With  the 
support  of  Leo  of  Rome  she  summoned  a  new  General 
Council  to  assemble  at  Chalcedon  in  October  45 1 . 
This  Council  ratified  the  three  previous  (Ecumenical 
Councils  of  Nicaea,  Constantinople,  and  Ephesus.  It 
deposed  Dioscorus  for  his  crimes.  It  condemned 
Nestorianism  on  the  one  hand,  Monophysitism  on  the 
other,  expressing  approval  of  Leo's  letter  to  Flavian, 
and  making  it  the  basis  of  its  own  decree.  This  decree 
stated  that  the  Lord  is  "perfect  in  His  godhead  and 
perfect  in  His  manhood,  both  truly  God  and  truly 
man,  of  a  rational  soul  and  body,  co-essential  (homo- 
ousios)  with  the  Father  as  to  His  godhead,  co-essential 
with  us  as  to  His  manhood,  that  He  is  in  two  natures 
united  without  confusion,  without  change,  without  divi- 
sion, without  separation  {acrvyyvTW^,  uTpetrTbo'S,  aSiaipeTws, 
a-)((jopi(rT(joi),  the  properties  of  each  nature  being  preserved 
and  combining  into  one  Person."  The  doctrine  then 
is  that  our  Lord  assumed — not  a  man — but  human 
nature,  that  this  was  perfect  and  complete,  and  that 
He  assumed  it  for  ever,  so  that  it  is  not  a  mere 
vesture. 

In  bringing  to  a  close  our  account  of  the  first  four 
General  Councils  we  are  naturally  led  to  ask,  what  is 
the  nature  of  their  authority.  At  a  later  period  the 
view  came  to  be  held  that,  when  the  entire  Church 
assembled  in  a  General  Council  agrees  on  any  state- 
ment of  doctrine,  that  statement  must  be  infallibly 
certain,  must  indeed  be  received  as  a  divinely-inspired 
utterance.  But  the  actual  history  of  the  Councils  is 
opposed  to  such  a  theory.  Contemporaries  did  not 
deem  it  a  matter  of  faith  to  believe  in  the  infallibility 
of  General  Councils  ;  the  language  used  in  reference  to 


THE   AGE   OF   COUNCILS  79 

them  by  such  Fathers  as  Athanasiiis  and  Gregory  of 
Nazianzus  is  very  different.  Moreover,  not  one  of  the 
General  Councils  was  accepted  by  Christendom  at  large 
without  a  long  struggle.  The  story  of  the  Arian  re- 
action shows  how  lightly  even  the  most  venerable  of 
all  Councils,  that  of  Nica^a,  was  respected  by  many,  for 
at  one  Council  after  another  during  the  next  fifty  years 
efforts  were  made  to  reopen  the  question  already 
settled  at  Nicaea,  and  to  modify  the  Nicene  decisions. 
As  to  the  Council  of  Constantinople,  it  was  unaccept- 
able in  the  West  because  of  a  canon  which  it  passed 
bearing  on  the  Roman  primacy,  and  until  the  Council 
of  Chalcedon  in  A.D.  451  it  does  not  appear  to  have 
ranked  as  a  General  Council  at  all.  At  Ephesus  in 
A.D.  431  the  Council  broke  up  into  two  rival  portions, 
each  condemning  the  other,  and  it  was  the  Emperor 
who  decided  between  the  two. 

Nevertheless,  the  decisions  of  the  first  four  General 
Councils  are  of  the  greatest  value  to  us  Christians  of 
the  present  time.  They  bear  an  important  witness  to 
the  belief  of  the  Church  in  their  days.  But  that  is  not 
all.  Christ  promised  that  His  Holy  Spirit  should  be 
with  His  followers,  and  should  guide  them  into  all 
truth.  So  we  may  well  believe  that,  when  the  ministers 
of  His  Church  were  met  together  for  deliberation  on 
great  religious  questions,  with  a  sincere  desire  to  reach 
the  truth.  His  blessing  was  not  withheld  from  them  ; 
and  that  in  spite  of  human  infirmities  and  vacillations 
divine  guidance  was  vouchsafed ;  nay,  that  these  very 
infirmities  were  in  time  overruled  by  Him  for  good. 
If  the  General  Councils  have  obtained  great  authority, 
it  is  because  the  doctrines  set  forth  by  them  are 
true.     Such  documents  as  the  Creed  of  Nicaea  and  the 


8o     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND    PRESENT 

Decree  of  the  Council  of  Chalcedon,  though  they  do  not 
contain  all  truth,  will  bear  careful  testing,  both  by 
Holy  Scripture,  and  by  the  spiritual  experience  of  men. 
Their  guidance  has  been  found  trustworthy  in  the 
past ;  doubtless  it  will  be  found  trustworthy  also  in  the 
future. 

We  have  said  that  they  do  not  contain  all  truth,  and 
it  will  at  once  be  noticed  that  the  range  and  subject- 
matter  of  the  ancient  Creeds  and  other  conciliar  defini- 
tions is  limited.  What  they  contain  is  mainly  the 
theology  of  the  Trinity  and  of  the  Incarnation.  On 
other  departments  of  truth,  for  example  on  the  theo- 
logy of  the  Atonement,  they  are  silent  ;  and  in  this 
respect  they  differ  markedly  from  the  Confessions  of 
the  sixteenth  century.  Nor  is  this  accidental.  The 
Incarnation  is  the  union  of  God  with  the  whole  human 
race  ;  the  Atonement  is  the  application  to  the  needs  of 
the  individual  soul  of  the  blessings  brought  into  the 
world  by  the  Incarnation.  Hence  in  the  order  of 
Christian  thought  and  apprehension  the  Incarnation 
will  have  the  first  place.  Over  and  above  this,  the 
thoughts  of  Christ's  atoning  work,  of  the  guilt  of  sin, 
of  forgiveness,  justification,  personal  salvation,  were 
much  less  prominent  in  Eastern  than  in  Western 
Christendom.  Such  teaching  is  not  indeed  absent 
from  any  great  Eastern  Father,  but  it  is  not  promi- 
nent. To  the  West  it  was  given  to  work  in  these 
regions  of  truth,  whereas  the  decrees  of  Councils  were 
mainly  due  to  the  labours  of  Easterns. 

But  to  what  purpose  are  these  minute  definitions 
concerning  the  Godhead  ?  Cannot  a  practical  piety 
safely  dispense  with  them  ?  We  answer  that  it  is  a 
distinctive  mark  of  the  Gospel  that  it  makes  the  know- 


THE   AGE   OF   COUNCILS  8i 

ledge  of  truth  indispensable  for  the  highest  service  of 
God.'  When  our  Lord  says,  "This  is  the  eternal  life 
that  they  may  know  Thee,  the  only  true  God,  and  Him 
whom  Thou  hast  sent,  Jesus  Christ,"  He  speaks  of 
eternal  life  being  dependent  on  knowledge,  the  objects 
of  this  knowledge  being  God,  the  only  true  God  among 
many  phantom  gods,  and  He  whom  God  sent.  His 
Word,  the  utterance  of  His  truth.  Every  sincere 
Christian  will  aim  at  righteousness  of  life  ;  this  right- 
eousness is  to  be  obtained  through  Christ,  and  only  as 
Christ  can  be  explained  to  the  intellect  can  He  com- 
mand the  conscience.  And  though  Christ  is  Himself 
the  Truth,  yet  man — constituted  as  he  is — cannot  do 
without  separate  derivative  Christian  truths,  commu- 
nicable fragments,  as  it  were,  of  the  knowledge  of  God 
and  of  His  Son  Jesus  Christ. 

It  is  not  a  valid  objection  to  urge  that  the  finite 
cannot  know  the  infinite,  and  that  accordingly  the 
human  mind  is  incapable  of  forming  any  accurate 
notions  concerning  God.  It  is  sufficient  to  answer 
that  man  is  created  in  the  image  of  God,  and  that 
therefore  he  will  be  able  to  attain  to  some  knowledge 
of  his  great  Archetype.  Limitations,  doubtless,  there 
will  be  on  all  sides  ;  but  our  knowledge  of  the  spiritual 
world,  though  fragmentary  and  imperfect,  will  not 
therefore  be  unreal  or  false,  any  more  than  our 
scientific  knowledge  is  unreal,  though  this  also  has 
its  imperfections  due  to  the  limits  of  the  human 
faculties. 

Nor  again  would  it  be  a  valid  objection  to  urge  that 
the    definitions   of   the    ancient   Councils    are    of    little 

^  The  writer   is  indebted  for  several  thoughts   in   the   sequel   to   Hort's 
Hulsean  Lectures,  "  The  Way,  the  Truth,  the  Life." 

F 


82     THE   CHURCH,  PAST    AND   PRESENT 

value,  because  they  were  affected  by  the  intellectual 
environment  of  those  who  drew  them  up.  It  is  true 
that  the  form  of  these  statements  was  determined  by  the 
philosophic  thought  of  the  age  ;  it  is  true  that  such 
terms  as  Ousia,  Homoousios,  Hypostasis,  rest  on 
philosophical  ideas  which  are  not  those  of  our  present- 
day  thought.  But  may  not  Greek  philosophy  have 
had  its  place  and  function  in  God's  providential  guid- 
ance of  mankind  ?  And  the  substance  of  the  statements 
remains  unaffected  by  such  influences  ;  it  has  its  source 
in  the  revelation  contained  in  Scripture,  its  constant 
verification  in  the  spiritual  experience  of  Christians. 
Yet  undoubtedly  the  knowledge  of  this  fact  may  well 
stimulate  us  to  penetrate  afresh  through  the  form  to  the 
substance. 

This  brings  us  to  another  point  of  great  importance. 
We  have  dwelt  on  the  authority  of  the  General 
Councils,  which  is  unquestionably  great.  But,  as  it 
has  been  well  said,  their  authority,  like  all  other 
authority  in  matters  of  belief,  is  salutary  only  in  so  far 
as  it  is  educative.  That  is  to  say,  authority  gives  us 
valuable  help  towards  forming  a  judgment  ;  the  teach- 
ing is  commended  to  our  hearts  and  consciences  by  the 
authority  which  promulgates  it  ;  but  authority  ought 
never  to  demand  that  we  should  accept  its  ruling 
against  our  own  conviction.  Our  power  of  recognising 
truth  presented  to  us  is  greater  than  our  power  of 
discovering  truth  for  ourselves.  Accordingly,  while  we 
have  to  depend  on  what  the  past  generations  of 
Christians  have  handed  down  to  us  as  the  sum  of  their 
religious  experience,  while  without  such  dependence 
our  own  view  is  sure  to  be  crude  and  distorted,  yet  at 
the  same  time  we  need  to  verify  for  ourselves  what  has 


THE   AGE   OF   COUNCILS  83 

been  thus  transmitted  to  us.  Dogmas  should  be  to  us 
the  Hving  expression  of  our  own  faith,  and  not  dead 
forms,  however  venerated,  recording  the  conviction  of 
past  generations,  and  submitted  to  without  inquiry. 
For  that  truth  which  we  have  learnt  to  see  and  know 
for  ourselves — it  may  be  by  a  laborious  struggle — is 
the  only  truth  which  has  for  us  the  power  of  truth. 
These  two  duties  then  are  indissolubly  united  for  us,  to 
stand  fast  in  the  truth  handed  down  to  us,  and  to  make 
unceasing  progress  in  apprehending  it  for  ourselves. 
"  Bonds  exist  that  men  may  be  free  ;  traditions  exist 
that  men  may  see  and  know."  Some  portion  of  what 
is  transmitted  will  be  within  the  range  of  our  own 
experience  ;  and  when  we  have  verified  that  for 
ourselves,  it  will  in  turn  be  an  assurance  to  us  of  what 
lies  above  experience. 

The  need  of  such  personal  apprehension  of  religious 
truth  is  increased  by  the  difference  between  the  age  of 
Creeds  and  Councils  and  our  own  age.  At  that  time 
no  truth  except  theological  truth  was  ascertained  by  the 
Christian  world.  The  main  substance  of  the  Christian 
revelation  is  the  knowledge  of  God,  and  this  knowledge 
it  was  given  to  Christendom  to  learn  first,  for  this 
knowledge  alone  was  indispensable  to  the  life  of  faith 
and  holiness.  Thus  Christians  in  the  early  ages  might 
easily  come  to  think  that  no  other  kind  of  truth  was 
attainable  by  man.  In  this  scientific  age,  however,  in 
which  we  ourselves  live,  many  new  departments  of 
knowledge  are  being  cultivated.  The  world  of  man — 
man's  past  history,  his  thought,  his  language — has 
become  the  subject  of  systematic  study.  By  the  con- 
templation of  nature  entire  realms  of  fresh  knowledge 
have  been   opened   up.       Theology   is   called   upon    to 


84     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND    PRESENT 

take  account  of  this  new  teaching,  now  that  traditional 
behefs,  such  as  those  handed  down  to  us  in  the  Creeds, 
are  placed  face  to  face  with  fresh  data  gathered  from 
historical  and  scientific  research.  In  some  instances, 
as  we  know,  the  result  has  been  a  disparagement  of 
theology.  Yet,  in  the  long  run,  this  progress  of  know- 
ledge is  calculated  to  benefit  and  invigorate  theology. 
The  Church  is  in  danger  at  times  of  becoming  slothful 
in  the  search  after  truth,  and  of  substituting  for  truth 
a  belief  which  has  been  merely  handed  down  and 
accepted  without  inquiry.  It  will  be  stimulated  afresh 
to  pursue  and  value  truth,  when  it  is  called  upon  to 
instruct  those  who  are  already  trained  to  learn  and 
value  truth  and  cannot  rest  satisfied  with  anything 
lower  than  the  truth.  Furthermore,  just  as  it  will  be 
the  duty  of  Christians  to  carry  the  light  which  they 
possess  into  all  the  regions  of  knowledge,  to  show  that, 
only  as  Christianity  is  accepted  as  true,  can  a  purpose 
be  discerned  in  the  universe,  and  that  the  Gospel  alone 
can  assign  to  each  separate  truth  its  fitting  place  and 
use  in  the  life  of  man,  so  Christianity  in  turn  will 
reap  a  reflex  blessing.  The  more  the  Gospel  is  used 
to  illuminate  other  departments  of  knowledge,  the 
better  it  will  itself  be  understood.  The  progress  of 
knowledge  will  bring  in  its  train  a  growing  sense  of  the 
vast  range  of  the  truths  of  the  Gospel,  and  of  their 
power  to  fulfil  all  the  varied  needs  of  men.  Every 
addition  to  our  knowledge  of  nature  adds  to  our  know- 
ledge of  God.  To  take  but  one  instance,  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  those  who  drew  up  the  words  of  our  Creed, 
'<  Maker  of  heaven  and  earth,  and  of  all  things  visible 
and  invisible,"  thought  of  God  as  an  Artificer,  forming 
the  universe  at  once  by  a  single  creative  act.      If  in  the 


thp:  age  of  councils  85 

present  day  we  have  come  to  think  of  this  world  as 
the  close  of  a  long  process  of  transformation,  and  of 
ourselves  as  slowly  developed  through  an  ascending 
series  of  lower  beings,  the  great  truth  witnessed  to  by 
our  Creed  stands  unchanged,  namely,  that  all  things 
are  of  God — while  yet  the  new  view,  so  far  from 
diminishing,  will  greatly  increase  our  reverent  awe 
and  admiration  of  the  divine  working.  Thus  increased 
knowledge  of  the  earth  may  lead  to  increased  know- 
ledge of  things  divine. 

Lastly,  in  considering  the  Creeds  and  the  decrees  of 
General  Councils,  we  must  be  on  our  guard  lest  their 
metaphysical  character  should  at  any  time  veil  from 
us  their  deep  moral  significance.  The  history  of  the 
Eastern  Church  may  serve  here  as  a  warning.  The 
leading  Fathers,  indeed,  such  as  Athanasius,  did  not 
forget,  in  the  midst  of  their  controversies,  the  claims 
of  practical  godliness.  But  with  some  the  love  of 
contention  on  speculative  points  was  so  great  that  it 
well-nigh  destroyed  true  piety  and  Christian  charity. 
And  this  attitude  brought  its  own  punishment.  The 
result  was  a  growing  sense  of  the  importance  of  hold- 
ing orthodox  views,  an  increasing  respect  for  authori- 
tative decisions  as  to  what  ought  to  be  believed,  and 
an  almost  morbid  anxiety  to  brand  as  heretical  all 
teachers  whose  views  did  not  conform  to  a  recognised 
standard.  Hence  the  East  came  to  be  bound  in  the 
fetters  of  traditionalism,  and  all  creative  life,  all  advance 
in  the  apprehension  of  Christian  truth,  came  to  an  end 
about  the  sixth  century.  It  shall  not  be  so  with  our- 
selves. The  sentences  of  the  Creeds  place  before  us 
a  summary  of  Christ's  life  on  earth,  and  that  life  is  for 
us  the  expression   of   His  nature.      When  they  tell  us 


86     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND    PRESENT 

that  "He  was  made  man,  and  was  crucified  also  for  us 
under  Pontius  Pilate,  that  He  suffered  and  was  buried, 
and  the  third  day  He  rose  again  according  to  the 
Scriptures,  and  ascended  into  heaven,"  they  rehearse 
to  us  what  may  be  known  of  One  whose  love  to  us  is 
immeasurable,  to  whom  we  owe  our  own  selves,  with 
whom  we  are  to  enter  into  the  closest  union  and 
fellowship.  And  those  clauses,  too,  which  assert 
Christ's  divine  nature,  His  pre-existence  from  eternity, 
His  equality  with  the  P'ather,  will  be  pregnant  in 
meaning  for  the  Christian  believer  ;  he  will  find  much 
in  them  for  daily  practical  application,  for  they  teach 
our  Lord's  supremacy  over  the  realm  of  nature  and 
the  realm  of  grace,  over  our  own  conscience  and  over 
the  whole  moral  world. 


CHAPTER    V 

THE  LATIN  CHURCH 

By  the  editor 

We  know  what  the  old  Romans  were  hke,  whose  heroic 
tenacity  overcame  the  fleets  of  Carthage  and  the  genius 
of  Hannibal.  Hard,  narrow,  brutal  men  they  were, 
who  never  stuck  at  any  cruelty,  full  of  class  pride  and 
utterly  unconscious  of  any  duty  to  aliens,  great  soldiers 
and  great  rulers,  with  much  taste  for  law  and  little  for 
philosophy,  and  even  less  for  spiritual  things.  Religion, 
indeed,  was  real  enough  among  them,  pervading  life 
with  ritual,  but  not  with  virtue.  The  state  had  its  gods, 
too,  as  well  as  the  family,  and  enforced  their  rites  when- 
ever it  thought  fit,  for  private  judgment  in  the  choice 
of  gods  was  a  public  danger.  Religion  was  purely 
social  and  ceremonial,  and  had  nothing  to  do  with 
truth  or  virtue.  To  give  the  gods  their  due  was  piety : 
to  know  the  ritual  was  hoUness. 

The  conquest  of  the  world  brought  mighty  changes. 
The  old  farmers  who  fought  the  Samnite  and  Punic 
wars  were  extinct  before  the  world  was  lost  in  Rome  ; 
and  the  sharp  edges  of  the  old  Roman  character  were 
gone  when  Rome  was  lost  in  the  world.  If  the  old  sense 
of  public  duty  was  weakened,  the  old  hardness  was  dis- 
guised by  literary  polish  and  sensibility.  The  senators 
of  the  declining  Empire  found  more  pleasure  in  country 
living  and  literary  trifling  than   in   the  heroic  virtue  or 


88     THE    CHURCH,  PAST   AND    PRESENT 

outrageous  vice  of  the  past.  They  were  much  sounder 
morally  than  is  commonly  supposed.  Yet  the  change 
was  less  than  it  seemed.  The  old  pride  of  class  was 
unabated  ;  and  Symmachus  is  as  careless  of  barbarian 
bloodshed  as  Tacitus.  Indeed,  the  ruin  of  the  Empire 
was  largely  caused  by  the  truly  Roman  greed  of  these 
polished  aristocrats,  who  laid  field  to  field  without  a 
thought  either  of  the  danger  of  the  state  or  of  their  duty 
to  the  Roman  poor  and  to  the  barbarian  stranger. 

God  sometimes  teaches  by  revolution  ;  and  something 
of  that  duty  was  learned  in  the  crash  of  the  ancient 
world.  But  in  the  main,  the  Roman  Church  is  like 
the  Roman  state  before  it.  Her  popes  are  commonly 
lawyers  and  administrators  like  the  old  proconsuls, 
hardly  ever  thinkers  or  philosophers.  Her  first  word 
by  Clement  is  of  law  and  order  ;  and  of  law  and  order 
is  her  last  word  by  Leo  XIII.  A  noble  work  she  did 
for  law  and  order  in  the  evil  days  of  barbarian  con- 
fusion and  feudal  anarchy,  and  it  would  be  ungrateful 
to  refuse  her  full  admiring  homage  for  it  ;  but  with 
law  and  order  she  has  always  been  content.  She  never 
greatly  cared  whether  her  law  and  order  was  that  of 
charity  and  truth.  She  always  aimed  at  something  of 
a  military  discipline  ;  and  there  is  something  of  military 
sharpness  even  in  the  noble  collects  of  Leo  and  Gelasius. 
So  for  law  and  order  she  has  outraged  nature,  trampled 
on  charity,  and  shut  her  eyes  to  truth  far  more  deli- 
berately than  any  other  great  Church. 

"  The  Church  of  God  which  sojourneth  in  Rome  " 
was  a  Greek  colony  which  needed  time  to  become 
thoroughly  Latin.  It  is  the  converse  of  Rome's  own 
great  colony  at  Byzantium,  which  took  a  long  time  in 
becoming  a  thoroughly  Greek  Constantinople.     Hints  of 


THE    LATIN   CHURCH  89 

the  character  already  shaping  may  be  found  on 
Clement's  grave  plea  for  order  in  "the  Church  of  God 
which  sojourneth  at  Corinth"  ;  in  Soter's  behaviour  as 
a  Father  of  Christendom  ;  in  the  appeal  of  Irenaeus  to 
the  great  central  Church  whose  orthodoxy  was  kept 
fresh  by  never-failing  streams  of  travellers ;  in  the 
statesmanship  of  Victor ;  in  the  practical  compromises 
of  Callistus  with  the  spirit  of  his  own  time.  But  the 
Latin  theory  was  not  developed  in  Rome  herself,  but 
in  another  great  colony  of  Rome  across  the  sea.  The 
first  great  utterance  of  the  Latin  spirit  came  from  the 
Roman  centurion  at  Capernaum,  who  imaged  the 
Saviour  of  the  world  as  the  Imperator  of  the  host  of 
heaven  ;  and  its  first  great  development  was  due  to  the 
son  of  a  Roman  centurion  at  Carthage.  Tertullian 
showed  how  to  shape  the  Gospel  by  the  principles  of 
Roman  law.  The  faith  is  an  estate  committed  to  the 
Church  by  Christ  ;  and  now  that  heretics  have  arisen  to 
dispute  her  title,  there  must  be  no  appeal  to  Scripture. 
The  Church  has  the  truth  and  does  not  need  to  seek  it. 
Heretics  have  no  property  in  Scripture,  and  get  incon- 
venient arguments  from  it.  The  Church  will  do  best 
by  refusing  to  touch  the  merits  of  the  case  at  all.  She 
has  only  to  enter  a  demurrer  of  uninterrupted  posses- 
sion, then  judgment  must  be  given  in  her  favour.  The 
argument  is  simple  enough,  but  it  is  not  conclusive 
unless  we  assume  either  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
gradual  change  of  doctrine,  or  else  that  such  change  is 
always  and  without  reserve  legitimate.  Nor  can  we 
take  for  granted  that  an  earlier  age  is  more  likely  to  be 
right  than  a  later,  unless  we  go  back  to  the  earliest  age 
of  all,  which  is  practically  unknown  except  from 
Scripture ;    and  this   is  precisely   the  appeal  to    Scrip- 


90     THE   CHURCH,  PAST    AND    PRESENT 

ture  which  Tertulliim  calls  waste  of  brains  and 
temper. 

Under  Cyprian  of  Carthage  and  Cornelius  of  Rome, 
the  two  great  Western  sees  were  held  for  the  first  time 
by  men  of  the  world  who  moved  in  the  highest  circles 
of  heathen  society.  Cyprian  was  a  born  ruler  of  men, 
courteous  and  literary  as  the  great  proconsuls  often 
were  ;  a  Christian  man  withal,  and  saint  and  martyr 
too.  Yet  Cyprian  it  was  who  showed  how  to  shape  the 
Gospel  by  the  principles  of  Roman  religion.  He  was  a 
practical  man,  who  took  his  ideas  from  the  air  around 
him  without  seriously  thinking  them  out  for  himself  ; 
and  these  ideas  are  mostly  heathen.  As  the  heathen 
god's  favour  is  strictly  limited  to  his  worshippers,  so 
God's  grace  is  strictly  limited  to  the  visible  Church.  As 
the  idol's  favour  is  dispensed  by  the  priests,  so  God's 
grace  is  dispensed  by  His  priests  the  bishops — for 
Cyprian  would  have  been  as  horrified  as  any  Protestant 
at  the  impiety  of  turning  presbyters  into  priests.  As  a 
Roman  magistrate  held  a  defined  authority  by  regular 
transmission,  so  it  must  be,  and  so  it  must  always  have 
been,  with  the  Christian  ministry.  Thus  sound  doctrine 
is  guaranteed  by  the  outward  succession,  and  the  legal 
questions  of  a  valid  transmission  become  vital.  Cyprian 
starts  from  the  unity  of  the  Church,  which  practically 
means  with  him  the  visible  unity  of  a  visible  society 
ruled  by  an  aristocracy  of  co-equal  bishops.  The 
Christian  priesthood  differs  from  the  Jewish  in  nothing 
but  its  permanence.  He  might  have  added,  that  it  is 
precisely  like  the  heathen  except  that  it  is  not  the 
priesthood  of  an  idol. 

The  bishop  is  the  priest,  and  resistance  to  him  is 
the    sin    of    Korah.       No    grace    outside    the    Church. 


THE    LATIN    CHURCH  91 

Baptism  will  save  the  infant,  and  martyrdom  the 
catechumen  ;  but  as  for  one  who  never  heard  the 
Gospel,  or  wandered  into  heresy,  or  died  out  of 
communion  with  the  bishop — no  innocence,  no  virtue, 
no  repentance,  not  even  death  for  Christ,  will  in  the 
least  avail  to  save  him  from  the  everlasting  fire  of  hell. 
In  this  direction  Cyprian  was  as  hard  as  any  Calvinist. 
On  this  theory,  Church  pardon  and  divine  forgiveness 
are  closely  linked  together.  It  is  plain  that  God 
forgives  none  to  whom  the  Church  refuses  pardon  ; 
and  the  converse  was  an  easy  inference,  that  God 
forgives  whomsoever  the  Church  pardons. 

The  Cyprianic  theory  has  long  since  drifted  from 
its  Cyprianic  moorings.  No  Church  but  Rome  now 
denies  all  salvation  beyond  its  own  limits.  No  Church 
now  counts  all  bishops  equal.  No  Church  now  counts 
the  presbyter  a  Levite.  In  the  Church  of  Rome  he  is 
only  the  bishop's  deputy,  but  it  is  still  the  essence  of 
his  office  to  be  a  priest,  not  a  Levite.  But  these  are 
secondary  modifications.  In  its  broad  outlines  the 
Cyprianic  theory,  as  completed  by  Augustine  and 
worked  by  Roman  bishops,  has  shaped  the  Western 
Church  ever  since,  and  deeply  influenced  both  the 
orthodox  East  which  never  accepted  it,  and  the 
Protestant  North  Vk'hich  rebelled  against  it. 

We  come  now  to  the  third  great  development  of 
Latin  thought.  Augustine  indeed  was  too  great  a  man 
to  be  so  purely  Latin  as  Cyprian,  and  has  points  of 
affinity  both  with  Eastern  Orthodoxy  and  with  Northern 
Protestantism.  Yet  he  too  is  flecked  with  human  in- 
firmity. He  never  fully  overcame  the  duahsm  of  his 
old  Manichean  theosophy.  It  rather  increased  on  him 
as   he   grew  stiffer   and   harder    in    his    old    age,    and 


92     THE    CHURCH,  PAST    AND   PRESENT 

renounced,  like  Sir  Thomas  More,  the  gentler  thoughts 
of  his  earlier  years.  But  hope  was  hard  in  the  age 
when  the  ancient  world  was  overthrown.  It  was  not 
the  sense  of  sin  that  deepened  in  the  deepening  gloom  : 
only  the  sense  of  God's  love  became  less  able  to 
contend  with  it.  The  Greek  Church  has  but  one 
doctrine,  for  the  Incarnation  lights  up  all  the  rest :  the 
Latin  also  has  but  one,  for  the  rest  are  overshadowed 
by  the  Church.  The  Gloria  in  Excelsis  is  the  voice  of 
one,  the  Dies  Iroe  of  the  other.  For  us  men  and  for 
our  salvation,  sang  the  Fathers  of  Nicaea.  From  this 
evil  world  to  ransom  his  elect,  replied  the  Western 
monks.  Augustine's  high  Calvinism  was  not  an  acci- 
dent of  Latin  thought,  but  represents  it  more  worthily 
than  the  practical  Pelagianism  of  mediaeval  asceticism. 
Cyprian  had  long  ago  declared  the  necessity  of  com- 
munion with  the  visible  Church  for  salvation  :  Augus- 
tine accounted  for  that  necessity  by  the  guilt  of  original 
sin,  which  dooms  to  perdition  all  but  those  who  through 
the  Church  are  guided  by  special  grace.  And  a  change 
in  our  view  of  man  involves  a  change  in  our  view  of 
God.  All-ruling  Love  fades  out  before  almighty  Will, 
and  our  heavenly  Father  becomes  a  Nebuchadnezzar 
in  heaven — whom  he  would  he  slew,  and  whom  he 
would  he  kept  alive.  Latin  theology  rejected  as 
sharply  as  Mahometanism  the  revelation  of  God  as 
Love  commending  itself  to  us,  and  justifying  itself  at 
every  step  to  the  image  of  God  within  us  :  and  fell 
back  like  Mahometanism  on  the  idea  that  God  is  Will 
inscrutable — which  is  a  form  of  Agnosticism.  The 
short  heroic  age  of  Islam  was  fired  by  the  convic- 
tion that  the  Inscrutable  had  somehow  declared  for 
righteousness  ;    but   a  still   nobler   belief    never  ceased 


THE    LATIN   CHURCH  93 

to  struggle  within  the  Latin  Church,  for  Rome  never 
quite  forgot  that  story  of  Christ  crucified  which 
witnesses  to  all  ages  that  So  God  loved  the  world. 
Obscured  it  might  be,  and  that  very  grievously,  as  by 
saint  worship  and  all  the  rest  of  the  carnality  ;  but  in 
the  Middle  Ages  it  was  never  utterly  forgotten.  Even 
Augustine  could  not  reconcile  the  Agnostic  and  the 
Christian  ways  of  thinking  ;  and  sooner  or  later  the 
struggle  between  them  was  bound  to  tear  the  Western 
Church  in  sunder. 

Latin  theology  was  now  complete  in  outline.  The 
Middle  Ages  worked  out  one  side  of  Augustine's  teach- 
ing, the  Reformers  groped  for  another,  and  both 
counted  him  their  spiritual  father.  But  this  African 
system  needed  Rome's  imperial  instinct  to  put  on  it  a 
corner-stone.  Now  that  the  Church  was  as  concrete 
as  the  State,  it  equally  called  for  an  earthly  head  ;  and 
this  was  more  than  Carthage  could  supply.  The  choice 
lay  between  Rome  and  New  Rome.  But  Constanti- 
nople was  an  upstart  and  a  creature  of  the  court, 
whereas  the  Roman  See  was  apostolic  as  well  as 
imperial,  and  by  this  time  Latin  too.  When  the  East 
was  torn  with  heresies,  Rome  could  take  a  commanding 
tone  as  the  mouthpiece  of  Western  orthodoxy  ;  and 
indeed  she  fared  badly  in  the  few  cases  when  she 
ventured  to  speak  without  the  West  behind  her.  Her 
supremacy  begins  to  be  practical  in  Augustine's  time, 
though  even  then  it  is  firmly  and  successfully  resisted 
by  the  African  bishops.  As  soon  as  Africa  was  wasted 
by  the  Vandals,  Leo  I.  obtained  from  Valentinian  III. 
an  edict  (445),  which  practically  subjected  to  him  the 
Western  Churches  of  the  Empire.  Thus  the  first  effec- 
tive   Roman   supremacy  was  a  grant   from  the    State  : 


94     THK    CHURCH,  PAST    AND    PRESENT 

and  it  was  more  than  the  perishing  State  could  enforce. 
In  another  generation  the  Empire  had  vanished  from 
Italy,  and  Rome  was  subject  to  the  Herul  and  the 
Goth :  and  if  she  was  made  Roman  again  by  Belisarius, 
the  Byzantine  yoke  proved  heavier  than  the  Gothic. 

In  her  deep  humiliation  she  began  to  recognise  the 
great  work  before  her.  As  the  Roman  State  had  made 
Southern  Europe  Latin,  so  was  the  Roman  Church  to 
make  Northern  Europe  Christian.  She  could  not  make 
it  Latin,  for  the  Teutons  have  a  character  of  their  own, 
and  even  the  Celts  have  never  been  thoroughly  Roman. 
It  was  "Gregory  our  father"  who  cast  aside  the  con- 
tempt of  barbarians  which  had  ruined  the  Empire,  and 
laid  a  firm  foundation  for  the  future  Papacy  by  his 
mission  to  the  wildest  of  them  all.  The  decisive  step 
was  taken  when  he  welcomed  the  English  to  the  Chris- 
tian fold.  The  conversion  of  the  English  directly  led 
to  the  conversion  of  Germany,  and  that  again  to  the 
reformation  of  the  Gaulish  Churches  and  the  restoration 
of  the  Empire  in  the  West  which  delivered  Rome  from 
her  Byzantine  captivity. 

The  feud  of  ages  was  forgotten  when  the  holy  diadem 
of  Empire  was  laid  on  the  great  Karl's  barbarian  head. 
The  Roman  and  the  Teuton  were  reconciled  at  last ; 
and  for  a  while  pope  and  emperor  worked  together  as 
twin  heads  of  Christendom,  though  the  emperor  was 
much  the  greater  of  the  two.  Karl's  own  great  work 
was  the  conquest  and  conversion  of  Northern  Germany, 
which  cleared  the  way  for  the  conversion  of  Scandi- 
navia. But  the  Empire  of  the  Karlings  was  too  weak 
for  its  work.  Its  strength  was  wasted  in  civil  wars, 
and  its  oppressive  military  system  broke  down  help- 
lessly before  the  attacks  of  Northmen  and  Moors  and 


THE    LATIN    CHURCH  95 

Magyars,  which  carried  fire  and  sword  throughout  its 
bounds.  Hardly  a  city  escaped  but  Rome.  Dark  as 
was  the  outlook  before  the  Karhngs  rose,  it  was  even 
darker  when  they  fell.  And  if  civilisation  was  saved 
by  feudalism  from  the  outside  enemies  who  were  break- 
ing it  to  pieces,  it  was  only  saved  at  a  fearful  cost  of 
anarchy  within. 

The  tenth  century  was  one  long  wail  of  misery. 
Gaul  and  Italy  were  sunk  in  feudal  anarchy,  Spain 
in  Moorish  slavery :  only  in  England  and  Germany 
stronger  kingdoms  had  been  organised  by  Alfred  and 
by  Heinrich  the  Fowler,  and  even  they  kept  very 
imperfect  order  in  the  land,  though  Athelstan  and  Otto 
the  Great  were  splendid  kings.  But  towards  the  end 
of  the  century  the  English  monarchy  crashed  down 
before  the  Danes,  and  the  German  was  dreadfully 
shaken  by  the  disaster  of  Cotrone  in  982.  Europe 
seemed  dissolving  into  universal  ruin.  No  panic  of 
the  end  of  the  world  was  needed  to  melt  the  hearts 
of  men  in  that  day  of  trouble  and  distress,  of  waste- 
ness  and  desolation.  Small  wonder  if  they  turned 
away  from  this  world's  wretchedness  to  win  by  pain- 
ful asceticism  the  glories  of  another.  Monasticism 
crept  into  the  Church  in  the  fourth  century,  and  was 
organised  in  the  sixth  by  Benedict  of  Nursia  ;  but 
now  it  came  forth  from  Cluny  in  a  sterner  form  to 
preach  its  gospel — of  forgiveness  truly,  but  forgiveness 
to  be  won  by  self-chosen  and  self-inflicted  suffering. 
Asceticism  despairs  of  the  world  like  Calvinism,  as 
though  God  could  not  or  would  not  save  more  than 
a  remnant  ;  and  it  is  as  common  a  form  of  that  despair 
for  weak  natures  as  Calvinism  is  for  strong.  The  old 
prophet's  mantle  rested  on  the  monk  when  he  preached 


96     THE   CHURCH,  PAST    AND   PRESENT 

wrath  and  doom  on  a  corrupted  Church  ;  but  there 
was  no  power  in  his  asceticism  to  purify  it,  for  the 
ascetic  takes  as  low  and  physical  a  view  as  any  sinner 
of  the  revelation  of  God  in  common  life,  and  the  con- 
clusion he  draws  from  it  is  hardly  less  demoralising  to 
the  world  outside  his  monastery. 

However,  the  worst  was  really  past.  The  North- 
men had  been  checked  by  Alfred  and  Count  Odo  in 
the  peace  of  Wedmore  and  the  three  years'  siege  of 
Paris  ;  the  Magyar  hosts  were  scattered  to  the  winds 
by  the  great  Otto  on  the  Lechfeld,  and  at  last  the 
Moors  were  driven  from  Provence,  But  now  that  the 
outside  enemies  were  beaten  off,  the  internal  anarchy 
of  feudalism  seemed  hardly  less  intolerable  than  the 
ravages  of  the  Northmen.  Yet  what  remedy  ?  Kings 
were  helpless,  the  Church  was  deeply  feudalised.  Fight- 
ing bishops  compared  badly  even  with  fighting  barons. 
The  popes  indeed  had  seemed  for  a  while  to  rise  on 
the  ruins  of  the  Empire.  The  Field  of  Lies  was  a 
premature  Canossa  ;  and  Nicolas  I.  was  the  most  com- 
manding pope  yet  seen.  But  the  Papacy  was  soon 
swept  into  the  whirlpool  of  Italian  anarchy,  and  be- 
came the  sport  of  harlots  and  factions  for  more  than  a 
century.  It  had  some  strong  popes  like  Gerbert, 
and  even  the  weak  popes  commanded  a  certain  respect 
beyond  the  Alps.  But  a  real  reform  was  clearly  needed. 
The  ninth  century  had  outlined  it  in  the  False  Decre- 
tals, and  provided  a  weapon  in  transubstantiation  :  now 
the  work  had  to  be  done  in  the  eleventh. 

The  reforming  party  leaned  on  the  Empire,  which 
had  recovered  its  power  under  Heinrich  III.  (1039- 
1056).  Three  quarrelling  popes  were  set  aside  at  once, 
and  unity  and  decency  restored,  but  at  the  cost  of  sub- 


THE   LATIN   CHURCH  97 

jection  to  the  Empire.  The  next  thirty  years  are  the 
critical  period,  in  which  the  reforming  movement  passed 
from  German  to  ItaHan  hands,  and  developed  its  policy 
of  putting  down  the  fighting  clergy,  the  marrying  clergy, 
and  the  simoniac  clergy.  At  a  later  stage  the  last  be- 
came a  prohibition  of  investiture  by  a  layman,  which 
brought  it  into  collision  with  the  kings.  The  object 
was  to  separate  the  Church  sharply  from  the  world,  and 
the  means  thereunto  was  the  elevation  of  the  Papacy 
above  the  Empire.  The  sanction  of  transubstantiation 
came  later  still,  for  Gregory  VII.  does  not  seem  to  have 
seen  the  importance  of  the  doctrine. 

The  Hildebrandine  reformation  was  the  answer  of 
the  Church  to  the  world's  appeal  for  help.  We  utterly 
misread  it  if  we  see  in  Gregory  VII.  nothing  more  than 
priestcraft  and  vulgar  scheming.  He  is  more  like  some 
old  Hebrew  prophet  whom  the  Lord  has  lifted  up  on 
high,  to  rebuke  the  kings  of  the  earth  and  smite  its  evil- 
doers. The  aim  of  the  mediaeval  Papacy  was  a  noble 
one — to  purify  the  Church  into  a  kingdom  of  righteous- 
ness overlooking  and  controlling  the  world.  It  was  a 
splendid  service  to  hold  up  such  an  ideal  as  this  to  an 
age  of  wrong  and  violence,  however  the  reality  may 
have  fallen  short  of  it.  Yet  Rome  was  not  unworthy 
of  the  great  position  which  the  world  had  thrust  upon 
her.  Nicolas  of  Langley  was  not  the  only  pope  who 
felt  his  crown  a  crown  of  fire.  Rome's  influence  in 
England,  for  example,  was  upon  the  whole  for  good, 
from  Augustine's  landing  till  past  the  times  of  Anselm 
and  Thomas  of  Canterbury.  But  the  dilemma  was 
hopeless.  If  the  Church  stood  aside  from  the  world,  it 
might  drain  away  its  best  elements,  but  it  would  only 
debase  what  remained  ;  and,  if  it  endeavoured  to  govern 

G 


98     THE   CHURCH,  PAST    AND    PRESENT 

the  world,  a  carnal  fight  would  have  to  be  fought  with 
carnal  weapons.  Meanwhile  asceticism  cooled  down  in 
spite  of  sundry  revivals,  and  passed  by  easy  stages  into 
indifference  and  licence.  The  higher  the  Papacy  rose, 
the  more  worldly  it  became.  Gregory  VII.  began  the 
contest  with  the  Empire  in  the  spirit  and  power  of 
Elijah  ;  Innocent  IV.  triumphantly  finished  it  in  the 
spirit  of  Simon  Magus.  "The  seller  of  sacred  things 
is  dead,"  said  his  successor. 

The  twelfth  century  is,  upon  the  whole,  a  continua- 
tion of  the  eleventh  ;  but  the  Hildebrandine  enthusiasm 
was  dying  out.  Gregory  himself  would  gladly  have 
swept  away  the  "  brigands,  and  sons  of  brigands,"  as  he 
called  the  kings,  but  his  successors  had  to  make  terms 
with  the  world.  The  feature  of  its  first  half  is  the  Cis- 
tercian revival,  represented  by  Bernard  of  Clairvaux  and 
in  a  different  way  by  Nicolas  of  Langley  ;  that  of  its 
second  is  the  parallel  reigns  of  Frederick  Barbarossa 
in  Germany,  and  of  Henry  Fitz-Empress  in  England 
and  Aquitaine,  and  the  beginning  by  Albert  the  Bear 
and  Henry  the  Lion  of  the  great  north-eastern  expan- 
sion of  Germany  in  Slavic  lands. 

The  thirteenth  century  saw  the  culmination  of  the 
Latin  Church  and  the  beginning  of  its  decline.  We 
pass  in  it  from  the  triumphs  of  Innocent  III.  to  the 
gasconades  of  Boniface  VIII.;  from  the  consolidation 
of  Latin  doctrine  in  transubstantiation  and  auricular 
confession  by  the  Lateran  Council  of  12 15  to  its  codi- 
fication by  Thomas  Aquinas,  and  then  again  to  its  dis- 
integration by  the  subtle  unbelief  of  Duns  Scotus.  The 
panorama  of  events  is  magnificent — the  capture  of  Con- 
stantinople, the  breaking  of  the  Moorish  power  in  Spain 
at   Navas  de  Tolosa,   King  John's  submission  and  the 


THE   LATIN   CHURCH  99 

Charter,  the  extirpation  of  the  Albigenses,  the  rise  of 
the  mendicants,  the  Mongol  devastations,  the  last  and 
mightiest  struggle  of  the  Hohenstaufen  Empire,  the 
Barons'  War  in  England,  the  loss  of  Antioch  and  Acre, 
and  the  rise  of  France  to  a  position  in  Europe  almost  as 
commanding  as  Napoleon's.  This  was  the  age  of  the 
schoolmen,  the  age  of  Roger  Bacon,  the  age  of  the 
great  cathedrals.  A  wave  ran  through  the  world,  from 
the  Irrawaddy  to  the  Scottish  border,  from  the  gold  and 
silver  temples  of  Pagan  to  the  minsters  of  York  and 
Lincoln.  So  glorious  was  the  start  of  the  young  nations 
of  Europe.  The  age  was  one  of  revolution.  Pope  and 
emperor  were  in  theory  twin  rulers  of  a  Catholic  world, 
so  that  the  fall  of  the  Hohenstaufens  undermined  the 
whole  Catholic  theory  of  society,  and  left  the  popes 
exposed  alone  to  the  impact  of  the  growing  world  of 
nations.  There  was  little  help  in  the  Hapsburgs  put  up 
by  Gregory  X.  Frederick  II.  is  emperor  as  well  as 
king,  but  St.  Louis  after  him  and  Edward  1.  are  purely 
national  kings.  Rome's  last  good  gift  to  England  was 
Stephen  Langton  ;  and  before  the  century  is  out  she 
has  had  her  decisive  repulse  from  Edward  I.  with  a 
nation  behind  him,  and  this  is  followed  by  a  still  more 
disastrous  overthrow  from  Philip  of  France.  Univer- 
sities are  formed  instead  of  monasteries  built,  and  even 
the  mendicants  are  monks  of  a  new  sort.  Asceticism  is 
coming  out  from  the  cloister  to  preach  and  teach  and 
minister  to  the  people,  and  even  to  share  the  aspirations 
of  the  people,  like  the  English  Franciscans  in  the  Barons' 
War.  The  schoolmen  show  new  stirrings  of  northern 
thought  inside  the  Latin  Church,  for  they  are  mostly 
northerners,  and  largely  Englishmen.  Even  Thomas 
Aquinas  had  a  father  related  to  the  Hohenstaufens,  and 


loo     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND    PRESENT 

a  Norman  mother.  The  Inquisition,  to  be  sure,  was 
not  northern.  It  was  chiefly  in  Dominican  hands,  and 
the  difference  of  Dominican  and  Franciscan  is  very 
much  the  difference  of  Spain  and  Italy.  But  its  great 
significance — the  bishops  would  not  work  it — is  that  the 
Church  was  ceasing  to  be  a  Church  of  the  people,  and 
forming  a  new  aUiance  with  kings  and  nobles  rather 
than  with  peoples.  Robert  of  Lincoln  shows  us  what 
is  passing  away,  Lewis  of  Beaumont  what  is  coming. 

The  change  from  the  thirteenth  to  the  fourteenth 
century  is  well  figured  by  this  change  from  the  learned 
and  saintly  son  of  a  peasant  to  the  illiterate  aristocrat 
who   could   not   read    his    profession   of    obedience    to 
the    metropolitan.        The    great    Edward     slept     with 
his    fathers,    and    an    asinus    coronatus    reigned    in    his 
stead.       Though    the  thirteenth  century  was  no  more 
perfect   than   the  sixteenth — Adam   Marsh   had  reason 
for    his    His    diebus    damnatissimis — it    was     almost     as 
full  of  bursting  life,   and   of   promise  in   all   directions 
that  remained  for   generations    unrealised.     The   four- 
teenth was  a  showy,  hollow,  barren  age,  which   fully 
revealed   the   decay    of    Latin    Christianity.      The   only 
wave  that  ran  through  the  world  in   it  was  the   Black 
Death.     Its  landmarks  are   the    decisive   defeat   of   the 
Papacy   under   Boniface  VIII.   by  the  new  nations,  its 
''  Babylonish  Captivity  "  at  Avignon,  and  following  this 
the  Great  Schism  and  the  rise  of  Lollardism  in  England. 
Hardly  less  important  was  the  failure  of  Monasticism. 
Its  first  ideal,  falsely  called  chastity,  was  plainly  impos- 
sible for  men  in  general.     The  endeavour  to  enforce  it 
even  on  the   clergy  was   a    practical   failure,  and   had 
caused  the  most  appalling  evils  ;  and  now  experience 
was  showing  that  the  family  life  on  which  the  nations 


THE   LATIN   CHURCH  loi 

rested  is  purer  and  nobler  than  the  monastic.  Its 
second  ideal  of  poverty  received  a  fatal  blow  from 
John  XXII.  in  1322.  For  centuries  the  popes  had 
been  balancing  between  the  bishops  as  the  ofBcial 
heads  of  the  great  system  and  the  monks  who  stood 
for  individualism  inside  it  ;  but  now  the  very  principle 
of  the  mendicants  was  declared  contrary  to  Christ's 
example.  The  dead  mass  might  go  on  by  vis  inertice ; 
but  the  more  earnest  of  the  monks  henceforth  looked 
restlessly  to  mysticism,  to  new  forms  of  association,  or 
even  to  heresy.  Small  wonder  if  the  Reformation 
(which  finally  discredited  for  Northern  Europe  the 
third  monastic  vow  of  obedience)  found  so  many  of 
its  leaders  from  Brother  Martin  downward  in  the 
monasteries. 

So  in  the  fifteenth  century  we  see  the  Latin  Church 
in  deep  decay.  The  thoughts  of  the  Middle  Ages  were 
thrust  aside  by  the  growth  of  nations,  of  commerce 
and  of  family  life.  One  after  another  its  ideals  had 
been  discredited.  The  emperor  was  the  first  to  go. 
True,  they  had  set  up  Caesar  in  his  place  again  ;  but 
the  Hapsburg  emperors  were  the  merest  shadows  of 
their  mighty  predecessors.  The  lord  of  the  world  had 
shrunk  into  a  second-rate  archduke  in  Germany,  in 
real  power  quite  unequal  to  Charles  of  Burgundy. 
The  pope  went  next.  The  scandals  of  the  thirteenth 
century  were  followed  by  subjection  to  France  and 
greater  scandals  in  the  fourteenth ;  and  the  culminating 
scandals  of  the  Great  Schism  made  irresistible  the  cry 
for  reformation  of  the  Church  in  head  and  members. 
For  a  while  the  Papacy  seemed  subjected  to  Councils. 
Three  popes  were  deposed  ;  and  for  a  moment  even 
the    Luxemburger    Sigismund    could     mimic     a    great 


I02     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND    PRESENT 

emperor.  But  the  Church  was  too  far  gone  for  reform 
from  within.  Councils  could  not  even  limit  the  Papal 
supremacy,  much  less  replace  it  by  their  own  ;  and 
least  of  all  did  they  even  wish  to  reform  the  false  doc- 
trine which  underlay  the  scandals.  If  they  set  aside 
an  infamous  pope  like  John  XXIII.  they  were  bound  to 
replace  him  by  a  decent  pope  ;  and  before  a  Martin  V. 
they  were  helpless.  A  little  diplomacy  was  enough  to 
dispose  of  the  Councils  ;  and  then  the  Papacy  seemed 
restored  to  its  former  splendour. 

Seemed,  and  only  seemed,  for  it  was  but  a  restora- 
tion like  the  Hapsburg  Empire,  though  not  so  badly 
tarnished.  For  the  last  half  century  before  the  Reforma- 
tion, the  serious  policy  of  the  popes  is  very  much 
limited  to  Italy.  Albigensic,  Lollard,  and  Hussite  heresy 
had  witnessed  wide  and  bitter  discontent  in  Romance, 
Teutonic,  and  Slavonic  Europe ;  and  that  discontent  was 
kept  in  check  by  a  threefold  policy  :  for  unbelief,  how- 
ever heathen,  there  was  licence,  witness  Pomponazzo  ; 
for  sin,  however  gross,  there  was  formal  penance  and 
easy  payment.  "  God  willeth  not  the  death  of  a  sinner, 
but  rather  that  he  should  pay  and  live "  ;  only  for 
attacks  on  Church  privilege  there  was  merciless  repres- 
sion. Though  the  records  of  persecution  were  systema- 
tically destroyed,  it  seems  to  have  raged  on  quite  as 
great  a  scale  before  the  Reformation  as  after  it. 

Latin  Christendom  undertook  a  burden  never  laid 
by  God  upon  His  Church,  and  broke  down  under  it. 
From  being  a  witness  of  Christ  and  guide  of  men,  it 
aspired  to  be  a  governor  of  men  and  final  judge  of 
truth,  and  forgot  its  proper  work  of  ministration.  The 
oversight  of  nations  with  which  the  Hildebrandine  re- 
formation   started,    developed    into    a    systematic     and 


THE    LATIN    CHURCH  103 

demoralising  interference  with  government  which  ought 
to  be  national.  Rome  could  not  really  govern  nations 
from  one  centre,  so  she  only  meddled,  and  meddled 
only  for  the  sake  of  gain.  The  oversight  of  private  life 
with  which  the  Latin  Church  began  developed  into  a 
systematic  and  demoralising  interference  with  conduct 
which  ought  to  be  individual.  Rome  could  not  really 
govern  private  life  by  any  central  church  law,  so  she 
only  meddled,  and  seemed  to  meddle  only  for  the  sake 
of  gain.  The  condemnation  of  the  Latin  Church  is  not 
that  great  sins  were  done  in  the  twelfth  century,  but 
that  under  her  guidance  sin  had  almost  ceased  to  be 
recognised  as  sin  in  the  fifteenth.  She  had  made  ship- 
wreck of  conscience  in  Western  Europe.  She  had 
degraded  the  world,  and  yet  more  degraded  herself,  by 
absorbing  into  the  Church  the  proper  work  of  the  nation 
and  the  individual,  as  though  the  Church  were  God's 
one  voice  on  earth,  till  it  was  time  for  the  world  to  take 
the  Church  in  hand  and  teach  it  something  better. 


CHAPTER   VI 

ENGLAND    BEFORE    THE    REFORMATION 

By  the  Rev.   W.   E.   COLLINS,  M.A. 

The  conversion  of  the  English  was  but  one  act  in  the 
making  of  the  great  Christian  commonwealth  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  and  yet  the  English  Church  has  always 
had  a  position  and  a  character  which  is  unique  in 
Christendom.  On  the  one  hand,  it  is  no  more  than  an 
incident,  though  a  most  important  one,  in  the  growth 
of  Western  Christendom.  On  the  other,  the  English 
Church  is  an  entity  from  the  first  ;  and  even  the  great 
convulsion  of  the  Reformation  movement,  whilst  it  has 
added  to  our  insularity  and  given  new  directions  to  our 
activities,  has  but  emphasized  and  developed  a  deter- 
minate character  which  was  there  from  the  first. 

It  is  unnecessary  here  to  speak  in  detail  of  the 
work  of  conversion  which  began  with  the  coming  of 
Augustine  in  597.  Suffice  it  to  say,  that  the  resultant 
of  the  various  forces  which  took  part  in  that  process 
was  a  Church  and  a  Nation  which  was  most  intimately 
bound  up  with  the  West  as  a  whole.  The  English 
peoples  were  still  "  barbarian  "  when  it  began,  and  as 
yet  practically  outside  the  pale  of  the  historic  civilisa- 
tion of  the  West.  Our  conversion  gave  us  a  place 
amongst  the  infant  nationalities  of  Europe,  and  left  us 
with  a  strong  national  life  which  bore  in  every  feature 
the  impress  of  the  new  faith  and  the  new  Society.     It 


BEFORE   THE    REFORMATION        105 

found  us  entirely  heathen,  although  our  Celtic  neigh- 
bours had  been  to  a  large  extent  Christian  for  centuries  : 
it  left  us  not  only  Christians,  but  also,  for  good  or  for 
evil,  bound  up  with  the  life-history  of  Latin  Christen- 
dom. It  found  isolation  and  division  :  it  left  a  strong 
united  Church  life  which  quickly  absorbed  and  gathered 
into  itself  the  Church  life  of  the  Celtic  peoples,  wherever 
the  two  came  into  close  contact.  No  other  result  was 
possible.  The  Celtic  peoples,  wherever  they  had  re- 
nounced their  heathenism,  were  earnestly  and  passion- 
ately Christian.  But  theirs  was  an  isolated  and  tribal 
Christianity  which  still  retained  many  elements  which 
were  directly  heathen.  It  was  a  private  religion  which, 
if  it  did  not  actually  foster  strife,  at  least  proved  itself 
singularly  incapable  of  overcoming  the  tendencies  to 
disunion  and  disintegration  to  which  their  temperament 
and  the  character  of  their  institutions  only  too  readily 
exposed  them.  With  a  few  conspicuous  exceptions,  it 
seems  to  have  been  remarkably  lacking  in  expansive 
power,  and  this  in  spite  of  a  very  real  missionary 
spirit.  With  all  its  poetry  and  all  its  beauty,  it  showed 
singularly  few  signs  of  containing  a  Power  of  Life  for 
wayfaring  men. 

It  need  hardly  be  said  that  the  illusive  dream  must 
be  once  for  all  abandoned  which  would  regard  "  the 
British  Church  "  as  one  of  transcendent  purity,  directly 
apostolical  in  origin,  scriptural  in  doctrine,  and  free 
from  papal  corruptions,  and  which  holds  that  this  pure 
Church  was  confronted,  displaced,  and  superseded  by  a 
corrupt  and  popish  organisation.  There  can  be  no 
real  question  that  the  Christianity  which  the  English 
received  from  the  continent  of  Europe  was  far  nobler 
than  that  which  the  Britons  intentionally  withheld  from 


io6     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

them.  The  theology  of  Latin  Christendom  as  set  forth 
by  Gregory  the  Great  may  be  in  some  ways  unsatisfying, 
but  at  least  it  is  equal  to  that  of  Gildas  the  Wise.  The 
moral  life  of  Rome  and  Italy  compares  very  favourably 
with  that  which  is  revealed  to  us  in  the  canons  of 
the  early  Welsh  Synods,  and  certainly  the  level  of 
civilised  life  was  far  higher.  But  above  all,  we  were 
launched  upon  the  full  stream  of  human  life  and 
progress,  instead  of  being  drawn  aside  into  what  was 
after  all  no  more  than  a  backwash,  in  which  certain 
primitive  elements  still  survived  simply  because  they 
had  drifted  aside  out  of  the  current.  No  doubt  there 
were  dangerous  tendencies  in  the  new  life  which  were 
not  present,  or  at  least  were  hardly  perceptible,  in  the 
old  :  such  is  always  the  case,  for  there  is  no  human 
progress  which  does  not  involve  the  loss  of  much  that 
is  good,  the  generation  or  development  of  much  that  is 
merely  partial  or  transitory,  or  that  may  become 
dangerous  in  the  future.  But  we  are  not  therefore  at 
liberty  to  prefer  that  which  is  ready  to  vanish  away  ;  it 
does  not  follow  that  "  the  former  days  were  better  than 
these."  In  a  word,  the  Christianity  which  we  received 
through  our  fathers  in  the  faith  was  immeasurably 
richer  and  higher  than  anything  else  of  its  own  day. 
Of  course,  it  is  easy  enough  to  see  the  imperfections  of 
that  which  we  received,  and  easy  enough  to  set  before 
ourselves  something  that  should  better  satisfy  our  own 
imaginations.  But  to  conclude  that  Celtic  Christianity 
would  have  supplied  this  is  to  be  absolutely  at  variance 
with  the  plain  teaching  of  the  facts. 

For  good  or  for  evil,  then,  the  English  Church  was 
entirely  bound  up  with  the  history  of  Latin  Christendom; 


BEFORE   THE   REFORMATION        107 

and  in  spite  of  our  strongly-marked  individual  character 
we  shared  fully  in  that  life.  As  the  Gallican  or  the 
Spanish  Church,  or  the  daughter  Church  of  Germany, 
became  gradually  more  subject  in  consequence  of  the 
growth  of  the  Papacy,  so  also  did  we.  We  shared  also 
with  them  the  effects  of  that  process  of  gradual  cen- 
tralisation, and  elimination  of  local  characteristics  and 
landmarks,  which  is  so  marked  a  feature  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  It  is  this,  and  this  alone,  which  rendered  pos- 
sible that  strange  misuse  of  terms  whereby  people  have 
come  to  speak  of  the  greater  part  of  Western  Christen- 
dom as  the  Roman  Church. 

If  we  compare  the  circumstances  of  the  English 
Church  in  these  two  respects,  with  those  of  others,  it 
would  be  true  to  say,  that  (i)  the  Enghsh  Church, 
which  has  taken  the  lead  in  emancipating  itself  from  the 
papal  tyranny,  was  in  some  ways  even  more  closely 
connected  with  the  Papacy  than  the  other  Churches  of 
the  West,  owing  to  the  circumstances  of  our  first  re- 
ception of  the  faith.  The  offerings  which  were  made 
to  the  Holy  See  in  its  tribulations  by  grateful  Eng- 
lishmen grew  by  degrees  into  the  earliest  of  papal 
taxes.  In  later  days,  when  Honorius  III.  and  other 
popes  were  seeking  the  munitions  of  war  against  the 
Empire,  it  was  England  which  gained  the  unenviable 
honour  of  being  par  excellence  the  papal  treasure-house  ; 
and  many  of  the  encroachments  upon  the  episcopal 
office  were  essayed  in  England  before  they  were  ex- 
tended to  other  nations.  (2)  On  the  other  hand,  our 
remoteness,  and  the  sturdy  independence  of  the  English 
character,  often  delayed  for  a  time  the  introduction  into 
England  of  new  developments  of  various  kinds.  And 
consequently,  everything  that  brought   about  renewed 


io8     THE   CHURCH,  PAST    AND   PRESENT 

intercourse  between  England  and  the  Continent  was 
likely  to  bring  with  it  some  fresh  impetus  or  some  new 
fashion  in  religion.  Thus  the  coming  of  the  Normans 
led  to  the  introduction  of  the  revived  monastic  spirit 
and  the  strongly  developed  '*  High  Churchmanship " 
which  had  taken  so  firm  a  hold  upon  their  character, 
together  with  the  new  Prankish  theory  of  the  nature 
of  the  Real  Presence  in  the  Eucharist.  Subsequent 
intercourse  with  the  Continent  gave  us  the  full  benefit 
of  the  Hildebrandine  reformation,  and  later  still  the 
all-embracing  system  of  the  Roman  Canon  Law.  One 
precedent  led  to  another,  and  the  result  of  each  was 
that  the  English  Church  had  become  more  closely  in- 
volved in  the  toils  of  this  great  human  system  than  it 
was  before.  And  thus,  little  by  little,  the  whole  fully- 
developed  structure  of  the  Papal  Monarchy  cast  its 
protecting  shadow  over  us  as  it  did  over  the  rest  of 
Western  Christendom. 

It  is  easy  to  see  the  inevitableness  of  this  system  of 
ever-increasing  centralisation,  and  hardly  less  easy  to 
see  that  it  served  a  very  real  purpose  in  its  own  day. 
Without  really  making  for  peace,  or  even  for  a  good 
understanding  between  the  gradually  shaping  nationali- 
ties of  Europe,  it  provided  a  background  and  an  order 
of  life  which  was  common  to  them  all,  and  thus  helped 
to  bring  them  into  relations  of  mutual  intercourse. 
In  such  ways  it  supplied  the  place  which  had  formerly 
been  occupied  by  the  Roman  Empire,  and  which  is 
occupied  in  our  own  day  by  that  interdependence  of  all 
the  activities  of  modern  civilised  life  which  transcends 
all  national  boundaries,  and  has  made  the  whole  world 
one  as  it  never  was  before.  It  gave  the  consciousness 
of   a  great  unity  to  all  the   nobler  aspirations  of  men, 


BEFORE   THE    REFORMATION        109 

thus  lending  to  them  a  force  which  they  could  never 
have  possessed  in  isolation.  It  presented  an  embodi- 
ment of  the  claims  of  faith  and  righteousness  which 
often  compelled  obedience  where  nothing  else  could 
have  done  so,  thus  making  for  freedom  even  when  its 
methods  seemed  to  be  those  of  tyranny.  It  supplied  a 
sphere  of  education  for  the  Christian  intellect,  narrow 
and  over-rigid  in  itself,  but  so  subtle  and  methodical 
that,  when  once  the  bonds  and  limitations  were  re- 
moved, learning  itself  formed  the  best  solvent  for  that 
system  which  it  had  hitherto  been  used  to  defend. 

In  all  this,  and  much  more,  England  and  the  Eng- 
lish Church  shared  quite  as  largely  as  any  other  part 
of  Western  Christendom.  The  theology  current  in 
England  was  not  less  mediaeval  in  character  ;  the  inter- 
course between  the  English  Church  and  the  Papal  See 
was  in  no  way  less  frequent.  Of  all  the  nations 
of  the  West,  as  has  been  said  above,  England  was 
second  to  none  in  deference  for  the  Holy  See. 
Respect  for  the  papal  office  was  unbounded,  and 
for  papal  ordinances  so  far  as  it  was  convenient 
to  observe  them.  It  was  the  ordinary  thing  to 
solve  dilemmas  in  ecclesiastical  matters  by  having  re- 
course to  the  Papal  Chancery  and  the  Curia,  and  this 
continued,  by  a  kind  of  mutual  accommodation  between 
King  and  Pope,  in  spite  of  the  legislation  which  from 
time  to  time  aimed  at  restricting  it.  Nevertheless, 
during  the  later  Middle  Ages  the  Papacy  was  un- 
doubtedly very  unpopular  in  England.  The  main 
reason  for  this  unpopularity  was  not  that  the  system 
was  felt  to  be  wrong  in  principle :  quite  the  contrary. 
When  Grosseteste  is  writing  most  severely  against  the 
Papacy  of  his  own  day  he  does  not  suggest  that  it  is 


no     THE    CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

in  itself  an  evil,  but  simply  that  the  abuse  of  such  power 
as  the  Pope  possesses  is  a  thing  antichristian.  And 
not  for  centuries,  not  until  legend  had  given  place  to 
a  truer  knowledge  of  the  history  of  the  Church,  was  it 
possible  for  Englishmen  as  a  whole  to  advance  beyond 
this.  But  in  England  the  Papacy  was  unpopular,  from 
the  thirteenth  century  and  onward,  because  in  its 
practical  working  it  led  to  consequences  which  were 
very  objectionable.  It  gave  rise  to  continual  delays 
and  uncertainties  in  matters  which  had  a  very  direct 
bearing  upon  every-day  life.  It  conveyed  a  continual 
stream  of  good  English  money  out  of  the  country,  and 
this  often  at  times  when  it  could  ill  be  spared.  More- 
over, during  the  greater  part  of  the  fourteenth  century 
the  Popes  were  Frenchmen  and  dwelt  at  Avignon, 
which,  if  not  actually  in  French  territory,  was  the 
next  thing  to  it  ;  so  that  our  money  was  being  sent 
out  of  England  virtually  to  support  our  enemies  the 
French.  Above  all,  great  causes  were  continually 
and  inevitably  settled,  by  the  power  which  professed 
to  be  the  supreme  spiritual  arbiter  of  Christendom, 
upon  grounds  which  were  simply  and  indubitably 
political.  Such  political  decisions  were  not  always  made 
with  our  interests  in  view,  but  rather  against  them  ; 
and  it  even  happened  sometimes  that  the  settlement 
was  dictated  by  the  ambassadors  of  some  prince  with 
whom  we  were  actually  at  war.  Considerations  such 
as  these  had  undoubtedly  much  to  do  with  the  actual 
breach  with  Rome  when  it  occurred.  And  yet  no  mis- 
take could  well  be  greater  than  that  of  thinking  that 
these  were  the  causes  which  led  to  the  English  Refor- 
mation, or  even  to  the  particular  side  of  it  which  was 
concerned  with  the  Pope — the  abolition  of  his  jurisdic- 


BEFORE   THE    REFORMATION         in 

tion  in  England.  The  fact  is  that  the  system  contained 
within  itself,  in  its  rigidity  and  its  one-sidedness  and  its 
ever-increasing  narrowness,  the  seeds  of  its  own  decay. 
An  institution  which  had  arisen  to  supply  the  needs  of 
the  Middle  Ages  could  not  possibly  be  suited  in  the 
same  degree  to  an  age  in  which  every  characteristic 
feature  of  mediievalism  had  been  shattered  to  pieces. 
The  measure  of  its  previous  success  was  the  measure 
of  its  present  failure.  As  one  transitory  method  of 
God's  working,  the  Papacy  had  had  its  value  for  us 
and  for  others.  But  when  it  claimed  to  be  not  a 
partial  agency  in  God's  providence,  but  a  revelation 
of  essential  truth,  men  came  by  degrees  to  see  for 
themselves  that  it  was  a  lie ;  and  where  they  could 
not  see,  the  logic  of  facts  made  it  clear. 

A  Reformation  of  some  kind  was  a  thing  inevitable, 
and  not  least  so  in  England,  long  before  the  opening 
of  the  sixteenth  century.  Its  precise  nature  and  scope 
were  still  indeterminate,  and  would  depend  upon  the 
circumstances  which  should  actually  give  rise  to  it,  and 
the  persons  who  should  be  immediately  concerned  in 
it.  But  the  thing  itself  was  bound  to  come  :  it  was  the 
result  of  forces  which  were  already  in  operation  and  of 
tendencies  which  were  already  at  work. 

(a)  The  first  of  these  was  the  New  Learning.  There 
had  arisen  a  spirit  of  inquiry  which  was  no  longer  con- 
tent to  exert  its  faculties  upon  questions  the  answers  to 
which  were  regarded  as  already  completely  known ; 
or  to  accept  things  precisely  as  it  found  them,  on  the 
ground  that  they  were  stamped  with  the  sanction  of 
authority  acting  in  and  through  the  machinery  of  the 
Church.      A  great  army  of  scholars  was  beginning  to 


112     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

look  for  the  bases  of  authority  in  a  new  direction ; 
which  was  inevitable  when  once  the  study  of  the  New 
Testament  was  put  in  its  rightful  place,  as  the  primary 
record  of  God's  revelation  in  Christ.  This,  no  doubt, 
might  easily  degenerate,  and  often  did,  into  a  literalism 
which  was  almost  as  slavish  as  the  theory  of  Church 
authority  which  it  displaced  ;  but  in  itself  there  could 
be  nothing  more  noble  than  the  conviction  of  the  New 
Learning,  as  it  was  expressed  by  Erasmus,  that  in  the 
pages  of  the  New  Testament  they  might  behold  the 
Master,  and  know  His  will  more  clearly  than  if  He  were 
actually  before  their  bodily  eyes.  Meanwhile  an  enlight- 
ened criticism  was  sweeping  away  the  foundations  upon 
which  the  very  existence  of  the  Papacy  depended ;  whilst 
from  the  printing  press  there  came  forth  into  common 
knowledge  the  writings  of  the  Fathers,  the  records  of  a 
Catholic  antiquity  to  which  the  Papacy  in  the  mediaeval 
sense  was  a  thing  unknown.  If  the  Corpus  J ut'is  Canonici 
had  been  powerful  as  a  code  of  ecclesiastical  law,  its 
influence  had  been  hardly  less  great  as  a  kind  of 
authorised  commentary  on  the  past  history  of  the 
Church  ;  and  the  pages  of  Gratian's  Decretumy  with  its 
large  incorporation  of  the  pseudo-Isidorian  decretals 
and  other  forged  documents,  assured  the  mediaeval 
student  that  from  the  beginning  things  had  been  as 
they  were  in  his  own  day.  Whatever  other  learning 
he  might  have,  it  was  this  which  formed  the  basis  and 
pattern  of  all  his  ideas  of  the  history  and  constitution 
of  the  Church.  Now  came  the  great  awakening  :  the 
student  learned  that  from  the  beginning  it  was  not  so. 
Controversialists  might  still  dispute  about  isolated  facts,  or 
produce  spurious  or  interpolated  texts  of  the  Fathers, 
but  the  case  in  its  broad  outlines  was  too  clear.     Hence- 


BEFORE   THE    REFORMATION        113 

forward,  if  the  Papacy  was  to  stand,  it   must   stand  on 
its  own  merits  and  not  by  any  inherent  right. 

Nor  was  the  necessity  for  its  existence  so  clear  as 
it  had  once  seemed  to  be.  The  unity  of  Christendom 
was  almost  a  necessity  of  thought  to  the  mediaeval  mind, 
and  hitherto  the  Papacy  had  seemed  to  be  an  absolutely 
essential  part  of  that  unity.  For  the  Catholicity  of  the 
Middle  Ages  was  a  very  imperfect  Catholicity,  and 
Christendom  was  commonly  taken  to  mean  no  more 
than  the  Christians  of  the  Roman  obedience.  Western 
writers,  even  great  writers  like  Gerson  and  Thomas 
More,  commonly  use  the  word  Christendom  in  this 
sense  ;  and  it  is  therefore  a  significant  fact  when 
thinkers  like  Wyclif  turn  their  thoughts  further  abroad, 
and  conceive  it  as  a  possible  thing  that  we  should  live 
without  a  pope  like  the  Greeks.  By  degrees  the  con- 
ception of  the  oneness  of  Christendom  which  centred 
in  "the  Holy  Roman  Church,  mother  and  teacher  of 
Churches,"  began  to  give  place  to  one  which  was  at 
once  less  arbitrary  and  more  Catholic. 

{b)  Another  change  which  was  coming  over  the 
thought  of  the  West  had  reference  to  the  relations 
between  Church  and  State.  According  to  the  concep- 
tion which  found  its  strongest  expression  in  the  work 
of  Gregory  VII.  and  his  successors,  the  Church  was  an 
organisation  existing  over  against  the  secular  organisa- 
tion, and  standing  in  contrast  to  it  as  the  heavenly  to 
the  earthly.  Meanwhile,  largely  owing  to  the  practical 
neglect  of  Confirmation  and  the  partial  loss  of  the  con- 
ception of  public  worship,  the  rights  and  functions  of 
the  layman,  and  the  fact  that  he  is  after  all  the  primary 
unit  of  which  the  Church  is  composed,  were  more  and 
more   completely   overlooked.     And   thus  the  Church- 

H 


114     THE   CHURCH,  PAST    AND   PRESENT 

manship  of  the  Middle  Ages  came  to  be  as  imperfect 
as  its  Catholicity.  In  practice  an  entire  confusion  was 
made  between  the  Church  and  the  officers  of  the 
Church,  and  when  men  spoke  of  the  one  they  were 
really  thinking  of  the  other.  To  them  the  Church 
meant  primarily  the  great  hierarchy,  from  the  Pope 
down  to  the  lowest  person  in  minor  orders.  It  existed, 
no  doubt,  for  the  benefit  of  the  secular  world  outside, 
but  still  it  stood  outside  of  and  over  against  this  world. 
The  phrase  "to  go  into  the  Church,"  which  we  are 
sometimes  asked  to  regard  as  an  invention  of  the  seven- 
teenth or  eighteenth  century,  is  in  reality  a  mediaeval 
idea  expressed  in  mediaeval  language.  So  far  as  this 
idea  can  be  said  to  have  been  displaced  at  all,  the  fact 
is  certainly  one  of  the  results  of  the  religious  upheaval 
of  the  sixteenth  century.  To  this  extent,  and  no  further, 
there  is  real  truth  in  the  statement  which  has  often  been 
made,  that  the  Reformation  was  a  layman's  revolt  for 
the  recovery  of  the  things  which  belong  to  him  by  right. 
The  consequence  of  this  accentuated  clericalism 
was  that  the  clergy  became  an  estate,  with  interests  and 
instincts  peculiar  to  themselves.  They  never  actually 
degenerated  into  a  caste,  because  of  the  prevailing  law 
of  celibacy,  which,  in  part  the  expression  of  an  exag- 
gerated asceticism,  expressed  also  a  true  instinct  for  its 
own  day.  But  the  gulf  between  clergy  and  laity,  at  all 
times  and  in  every  religion  a  possible  danger,  had  now 
become  a  very  grievous  one,  and  the  lay  folk  began  to 
look  elsewhere  for  help  which  should  really  supply  their 
souls'  needs.  And  this  was  not  all.  From  being  a 
sharply  defined  estate,  the  clergy  came  to  be  a  kind  of 
imperiunt  in  imperio,  nominally  subject  to  the  laws  which 
bound  other  men,   but  in  practice  claiming   that  they 


BEFORE   THE    REFORMATION        115 

were  only  bound  **  saving  their  order,"  and  making  this 
reservation  cover  a  very  large  part  of  their  lives.  In 
truth,  they  were  only  "  half  the  king's  subjects."  Al- 
though a  working  arrangement  might  be  reached  from 
time  to  time,  the  position  was  one  of  constant  friction. 
As  soon  as  the  nation  became  conscious  of  its  own  unity, 
it  became  impossible.  When  Henry  VIII.  called  atten- 
tion to  the  incompatibility  between  Cranmer's  oath  to 
the  Papacy,  when  he  became  Archbishop  of  Canterbury, 
and  his  duty  as  a  subject,  he  had  made  no  new  discovery, 
but  was  only  saying  what  all  men  had  long  known  to 
be  perfectly  true.  It  might  be  met  by  a  definite  recog- 
nition on  the  part  of  the  clergy  of  their  position  as 
subjects  (leaving  them  still  free,  of  course,  to  disobey 
for  conscience'  sake  if  need  be,  and  to  take  the  conse- 
quences), or  the  settlement  might  be  veiled  under  a 
series  of  concordats  and  somewhat  unreal  "  accommo- 
dations." But  in  one  or  other  of  these  two  ways  the 
royal  supremacy  had  to  be  vindicated,  and  vindicated  it 
was,  sooner  or  later,  in  every  country  of  Western 
Christendom. 

(c)  A  third  side  must  be  briefly  noticed,  the  most 
important  of  all,  upon  which  a  reformation  was  already 
being  prepared  for.  The  mediaeval  system  was  one 
of  ever-growing  complexity  and  uniformity,  and  con- 
sequently one  of  increasingly  mechanical  character. 
Meanwhile,  although  some  of  the  elements  which  under- 
lay it  were  permanent,  many  features  of  the  system 
were  growing  old,  and  were  no  longer  suited  to  the 
requirements  of  a  new  age,  which  was  striving  to  find 
an  expression  of  its  own.  The  strenuous  and  ever- 
renewed  life  which  coursed  along  its  channels  was  bound 
in  time  to  burst  its  bonds   and   break  away  the  limita- 


ii6     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND    PRESENT 

tions  of  a  system  which  had  become  too  narrow  for 
it.  The  same  thing  was  the  case  with  rehgious  rites 
and  customs.  Men  naturally  endeavour  to  tind  an 
outward  expression  for  the  impulses  of  devotion,  to 
enshrine  their  religious  worship  in  acts  of  reverence. 
But  herein  lies  a  danger  :  the  outward  act  remains  after 
the  reverent  impulse  which  gave  rise  to  it  has  become 
habitual  or  has  passed  away.  A  new  impulse  of  rever- 
ence generally  seeks  to  find  for  itself  some  new  form 
of  expression,  not  being  content  simply  to  re-vivify 
that  which  is  there  already.  It  is  very  jealous,  how- 
ever, of  any  attempt  to  remove  the  rites  or  ceremonies 
which  it  finds  already  in  possession  ;  and  thus  a  con- 
tinual process  of  accretion  is  going  on,  until  the  fringe 
of  outward  acts  may  only  serve  to  hide  that  which 
it  was  intended  to  show  forth,  and  to  become  an  end 
in  itself  instead  of  a  means  to  an  end.  Opinions  may 
differ  as  to  whether  this  point  has  been  reached  ; 
but,  granted  that  it  has  been  reached,  there  can  be 
no  question  that  the  only  thing  to  be  done  is  to  clear 
away  with  a  bold  hand,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  pro- 
cess is  one  of  no  little  danger.  There  is  the  clearest 
evidence  of  a  wide-spread  feeling  in  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury that  this  point  had  been  reached.  Again,  as 
regards  theology :  the  current  theology  of  any  par- 
ticular age  is  in  constant  danger  of  becoming  depraved 
by  over-definition  in  some  particular  direction.  And 
this  result  is  almost  inevitable  when  it  is  divorced  in 
a  measure  from  practical  religion  and  treated  as  an 
abstract  science.  The  great  foundation  truths  get  to  be 
taken  for  granted  and  thus  overlooked,  whilst  theological 
study  tends  to  become  a  mere  intellectual  exercise  upon 
points  of  detail.     And  thus,  not  only  are  the  opinions  of 


BEFORE   THE    REFORMATION        117 

theologians  made  to  rank  with  the  facts  of  the  Christian 
creed,  but  the  whole  proportion  of  the  faith  is  lost. 
The  student  of  mediaeval  theology  can  hardly  fail  to  see 
to  how  large  an  extent  this  had  come  to  be  the  case. 
And  now  the  inevitable  reaction  was  at  hand,  in  the 
shape  of  a  return  to  first  principles,  and  a  recon- 
struction of  theological  systems  from  the  primary  facts 
upon  which  they  were  based.  And  once  more,  as 
regards  the  individual  religious  life.  The  fundamental 
question  as  to  all  religion  is,  which  end  does  it  start 
from  ?  Is  what  I  am  doing  for  God  the  basis  of 
everything,  or  what  He  is  doing  for  me  ?  In  other 
words,  are  Works  the  primary  fact,  or  is  Grace  ?  The 
one  view  is  essentially  pagan,  the  other  is  essentially 
Christian.  But  the  difficulty  is,  that  we  are  continually 
liable  to  slip  back  into  a  pagan  doctrine  of  works, 
owing  in  part  to  the  self-centredness  which  is  at  the 
root  of  our  sin,  in  part  to  the  fact  that  the  grace  of 
God  must  needs  produce  works  in  us,  unless  we 
have  received  it  e<V  Kemv.  That  this  was  a  dominant 
tendency  in  the  later  Middle  Ages  is  indisputable, 
in  spite  of  many  and  most  beautiful  exceptions.  Per- 
sonal religion  frequently  degenerated  into  an  endeavour 
to  make  an  atonement  for  sins,  and  thus  to  appease  an 
offended  God.  We  can  see  signs  of  it  in  the  multipli- 
cation of  expiatory  masses,  in  the  undue  stress  which 
came  to  be  laid  upon  the  performance  of  external  acts 
of  penance,  and  in  many  other  ways.  It  has  even 
been  said  that  religion  had  become  an  elaborate  system 
of  safeguards  against  the  consequences  of  human  sin. 
This,  no  doubt,  is  as  true  and  as  false  as  many  other 
smart  sayings  ;  but  the  fact  remains  that  it  is  in  part 
true.     And   perhaps  there  was  hardly  anything  against 


ii8     THE   CHURCH,  PAST    AND   PRESENT 

which  the  reaction  of  the  sixteenth  century  was  so 
keen.  Certainly  there  were  very  many  who  had  Uttle 
or  no  sympathy  with  Luther's  theory  of  justification  by 
faith,  at  any  rate  in  the  form  in  which  he  stated  it,  who 
yet  strove  strenuously  to  vindicate  again  the  CathoHc 
doctrine  of  grace. 

Now  all  these  things,  the  huge  pretensions  of  the 
papal  monarchy,  the  withdrawal  of  the  whole  clerical 
body  from  the  duties  of  ordinary  citizenship,  and  the 
increasingly  mechanical  character  which  was  coming 
over  religion  as  a  whole,  affected  other  parts  of  Western 
Christendom  not  less  than  England.  And  the  solvent 
forces  which  were  gradually  undermining  the  mediaeval 
fabric  are  to  be  perceived  as  clearly  on  the  continent  as 
here.  And  yet  the  course  of  the  movement  was  en- 
tirely different  here  from  what  it  was  there.  On  the 
continent  the  movement  was  either  one  of  radical  re- 
construction, or  else  it  degenerated  into  a  mere  sweeping 
away  of  practical  abuses  and  a  forging  of  the  old  chains 
yet  closer.  In  England,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  clear 
that  what  was  aimed  at  was  not  to  make  anything  new 
but  rather  to  protect  and  invigorate  what  was  really  old, 
and  to  cut  away  everything  which  obstructed  its  free 
growth.  And  whatever  failures  there  may  have  been 
in  the  process,  it  is  at  least  clear  that  this  description 
fits  the  English  Reformation  better  than  any  other  could 
do.  How  then  is  the  fact  to  be  accounted  for,  that  the 
course  of  the  Reformation  was  so  different  here  from 
what  it  was  elsewhere  ?  Why  did  not  England  go  the 
way  of  Spain  or  of  Germany  ?  The  answer  is  obvious. 
The  Reformation  in  England  no  doubt  largely  depended 
upon  the  special  circumstances  of  our  history  in  the  six- 


BEFORE   THE    REFORMATION        119 

teenth  century  ;  but  it  was  largely  conditioned  also  by 
what  the  English  Church  and  nation  already  was  and 
had  always  been. 

To  speak  first  of  our  relations  with  the  Papacy. 
Englishmen  were  quite  accustomed  to  think  of  Britain 
as  having  a  distinct  position  in  Europe.  The  strip  of 
sea  was  a  barrier  to  an  extent  which  we  can  hardly 
realise  now,  and  to  the  inhabitant  of  the  mainland  the 
Englishman  long  continued  a  stranger,  with  a  character 
which  was  at  least  full  of  individuality.  English  kings 
had  proudly  repudiated  the  idea  that  their  realm  was  in 
any  way  bound  to  the  Empire,  and  had  claimed  the 
proud  title  of  Imperator  or  Basileus  in  witness  of  the 
fact.  No  English  king  but  Richard  the  Lion-hearted 
had  ever  recognised  that  he  held  his  crown  from  an 
Emperor;  and  he  only  did  so  in  order  to  regain  the 
freedom  which  would  enable  him  to  repudiate  his 
bargain.  Nor  was  this  aloofness  confined  to  civil 
concerns  ;  and  bearing  in  mind  the  relations  of  An- 
selm  with  Dublin  and  St.  Andrews,  there  is  a  real 
fitness  in  the  salutation  of  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury 
by  Pope  Urban  II.  as  quasi  alterius  orbis  papa.  Again, 
it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  there  was  no  mediaeval 
theory  without  its  counter-theory  ;  and  this  was  very 
definitely  the  case  with  the  current  theory  as  to  the 
relation  of  the  Papacy  to  the  Church.  Of  the  great 
schoolmen  who  set  themselves  against  it  in  one  way  or 
another,  three,  Alexander  of  Hales,  William  of  Ockham, 
and  John  Wyclif,  were  Englishmen.  Although  it  would 
not  be  true  to  say  that  their  view  was  in  any  sense  that 
of  English  Churchmen  as  a  whole,  there  are  many  signs 
that  the  other  theory  had  begun  to  sit  very  lightly  upon 
thoughtful  men.     No  doubt,  there  were  great  Church- 


120     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

men  who  magnified  the  Papacy  on  every  occasion,  and 
made  use  of  language  about  it  which  modern  Papists 
can  read  and  quote  with  complacency  ;  but  there  are 
also  others  who  did  their  utmost  to  check  its  constant 
encroachments,  and  to  secure  that  English  affairs  should 
be  settled  in  England.  Once  more,  the  English  character 
of  the  sixteenth  century  did  not  greatly  differ  from  that 
of  the  nineteenth.  The  temperament  which  thinks  more 
of  what  is  practically  useful  than  of  what  is  logically 
unassailable  was  as  characteristic  of  us  then  as  it  is 
to-day.  The  Englishman  cared  little  for  the  precise 
credentials  of  the  system  by  which  he  was  governed  so 
long  as  it  worked  well  ;  on  the  other  hand,  a  system 
which  had  been  proved  and  found  to  work  ill  need  look 
for  little  mercy  at  his  hands.  Consequently,  resistance 
to  Papal  tyranny  was  no  new  thing  to  us  :  time  after 
time  English  Churchmen  and  English  statesmen  had 
had  recourse  to  it.  In  fact,  it  is  no  exaggeration  to  say 
that  there  had  been  a  growing  tendency  to  resist  these 
encroachments  for  two  centuries  before  the  abolition  of 
the  papal  jurisdiction.  But  at  length,  in  the  sixteenth 
century,  there  were  new  facts.  The  New  Learning  had 
shown  us  that,  in  Tonstal's  words,  "  The  Church  of 
Rome  had  never  of  old  such  a  monarchy  as  of  late 
it  hath  usurped."  Since  therefore  the  papal  monarchy 
was  not  of  divine  right,  and  since  experience  had 
shown  that  it  was  a  nuisance,  the  practical  English- 
man wished  nothing  better  than  that  it  should  be 
swept  away,  so  far  as  he  was  concerned.  Others 
who  were  less  practical,  or  to  whom  the  existence 
of  a  Papacy  had  become  a  kind  of  second  nature,  might 
do  as  they  thought  good  ;  but  at  least  they  claimed 
the   right   to   exercise  a  corresponding   discretion.      In 


BEFORE   THE   REFORMATION        121 

doing  this,  however,  he  never  dreamt  of  separating 
himself  from  the  unity  of  the  Church.  The  Enghsh 
theologians,  Tonstal  and  Gardiner,  Stokesley  and 
Sampson,  make  this  perfectly  plain  in  their  defence 
of  the  king's  proceedings  against  attacks  from  with- 
out. All  that  we  had  done  was  to  remove  an  inno- 
vation which  had  come  to  be  a  notable  obstacle  to 
that  unity,  so  far  as  no  small  part  of  Christendom  was 
concerned. 

Turning  now  to  the  relations  between  Church  and 
State,  and  the  position  of  the  clergy :  here  also  the  action 
which  was  ultimately  taken  in  England  had  been  led  up 
to  by  previous  events.  The  question  was  to  us  no  new 
one  ;  it  had  been  raised  again  and  again,  now  on  this 
point,  now  on  that.  Conflicts  of  jurisdiction,  diver- 
gences between  the  canon  law  and  the  law  of  the  realm, 
questions  of  immunity,  and  disputes  about  taxation  were 
of  frequent  occurrence  :  questions  hardly  spiritual  at  all 
in  any  real  sense,  although  at  the  time  they  were  con- 
tested as  if  the  whole  spiritual  order  stood  or  fell  with 
them.  Now  there  was  no  great  difference  between  the 
claims  of  the  civil  power  in  England  and  elsewhere. 
But  the  course  of  the  struggle  in  England  was  pro- 
foundly modified  by  the  fact  that  the  civil  power  was 
far  stronger  as  a  rule  than  elsewhere.  In  England, 
and  here  alone,  there  was  a  government  and  a  civil 
administration  of  justice  as  wide-spread  and  as  constant 
as  that  of  the  Church  itself.  This  being  so,  a  contest 
between  Church  and  State,  on  matters  which  were  not 
really  vital  to  either,  could  have  but  one  result.  And 
in  fact  the  contest  always  ended,  sooner  or  later,  in  a 
victory  for  the  Crown.  It  might  be  glossed  over,  the 
rights  of  the   Church   might   be  set  forth  in  imposing 


122     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

language,  but  the  result  was  uniformly  the  same.  In 
other  words,  in  England  the  Royal  Supremacy  was 
from  the  first  a  reality  and  not  a  shadow.  If  there 
existed  for  a  time  an  imperium  in  imperio,  it  only  existed 
on  sufferance  ;  and  little  by  little  the  civil  power 
extended  its  sway. 

At  length,  at  the  Reformation,  the  civil  power 
called  for  a  formal  recognition  of  its  authority,  and 
laid  hold  upon  that  which  it  claimed  with  no  light 
hand.  Henceforward  there  was  to  be  no  imperium  in 
imperio  ;  henceforward  there  was  to  be  no  question  of 
the  fact  that  the  King  of  England  was  king  of  all  his 
people.  But  still,  excepting  for  the  temporary  excesses 
of  the  period  of  transition,  no  new  principle  was  intro- 
duced. If  we  compare  the  Reformation  Settlement  in 
this  respect  with  the  famous  principles  of  William  the 
Conqueror  as  recorded  by  Eadmer,  there  is  little  if 
anything  that  is  new  in  principle.  All  that  has  hap- 
pened is  that  what  was  once  arbitrary  and  occasional 
has  now  been  made  regular  and  precise.  Here  again^ 
the  Reformation  was  but  the  completed  work  of  forces 
which  had  been  in  operation  long  before. 

And  once  more,  with  regard  to  the  clearing  away 
of  what  had  become  formal  or  out  of  proportion  in 
faith  and  worship.  Such  a  task  appealed  to  some  of 
the  most  deeply-rooted  elements  of  the  English  char- 
acter ;  and  above  all,  it  commended  itself  to  English- 
men at  a  time  when  they  were  busily  engaged  in 
weighing  the  existing  order  and  ascertaining  for  them- 
selves how  much  of  it  was  practically  useful.  The 
only  danger  was  lest  they  should  do  their  work  over- 
sweepingly,  with  too  utilitarian  an  eye  and  with  too 
little  of  real  spiritual  insight.     But  the  process  itself  of 


BEFORE   THE    REFORMATION        123 

regulation  and  simplification  was  the  carrying  out  of  an 
aim  which  had  long  been  before  the  English  mind.  It 
is  hard  to  make  a  hero  of  Reginald  Pecock,  but  he  was 
a  very  far-seeing  man,  and  often  represents  the  best 
spirit  of  the  English  Church  of  his  day  as  no  other 
does.  Never  is  this  more  convincingly  the  case  than 
when  he  warns  his  fellow-bishops  that  it  is  not  wise  to 
make  the  way  of  salvation  narrower  by  multiplying 
definitions  and  rules,  and  so  to  place  additional  diffi- 
culties and  stumbling-blocks  in  the  path  of  the  way- 
faring man.  The  warning  is  taken  up  by  John  Colet 
when  he  advises  his  scholar  to  keep  to  the  Creed,  the 
Lord's  Prayer,  and  the  Ten  Commandments,  and  let 
divines,  if  they  will,  dispute  about  the  rest.  It  finds  its 
most  perfect  expression  in  the  words  of  Launcelot 
Andrewes,  "  God  hath  made  plain  those  things  that  be 
necessary  ;  those  that  are  not  plain,  not  necessary." 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  the  English  Church 
steered  a  middle  course  in  the  religious  revolution  of 
the  sixteenth  century.  If  this  means  that  we  delibe- 
rately made  a  compromise,  nothing  could  be  further 
from  the  truth.  Men  were  not  in  the  mood  for  com- 
promise ;  rather  they  often  fought  about  minor  points 
of  personal  preference  and  individual  opinion  when 
they  might  very  well  have  left  them  open.  But  on 
the  other  hand,  if  it  means  that  the  English  Reforma- 
tion aims  at  giving  expression  to  the  many-sidedness 
of  God's  revelation,  it  is  doubtless  most  true.  It  is 
true  in  the  sense  that  our  Reformation  was  the  w'ork 
of  the  body  as  a  whole  and  not  of  any  particular 
section.  And  it  is  true  in  the  sense  that  the  English 
Church  made  a  deliberate  efiFort  to  assimilate  what  was 


124     THE    CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

i^ood,  whencesoever  it  came.  That  our  Reformation 
took  such  a  course  is  due  in  part  to  the  fact  that 
many  of  the  elements  in  it  were  famiUar  to  us  already  ; 
in  part  to  the  fact  that  the  EngHsh  Church  already 
possessed  the  type  which  has  been  developed  more 
strongly  since. 

Such  a  Reformation  is  no  doubt  open  to  attack 
from  many  quarters.  P'or  example,  the  Via  Media 
may  be  the  way  of  loftiest  aspirations,  but  it  may  be 
no  more  than  the  line  of  least  resistance.  The  prac- 
tical man  is  frequently  a  bungler,  and  his  handiwork 
does  not  always  serve  the  purposes  which  it  was  in- 
tended to  serve.  The  work  in  which  a  whole  people  is 
occupied  will  hardly  be  done  without  gathering  round 
it  the  harpies  and  the  vultures.  And  a  change  which 
was  carried  out  in  so  business-like  a  fashion  does  not 
satisfy  those  who  are  accustomed  to  judge  of  spiritual 
fervour  by  excitement. 

Much  loss  and  failure  there  undoubtedly  was.  But 
it  ought  not  to  discourage  us  to  find  that  the  English 
Reformation  can  be  so  spoken  against,  and  from  so 
many  contradictory  points  of  view. 


CHAPTER  VII 
THE   REFORMATION! 

Bv  THE  Right  Rev.  the  LORD  BISHOP  OF  LONDON 

All  great  movements  which  affect  the  organisation  of 
society  are  of  slow  growth,  and  are  complex  in  their 
nature.  It  is  difficult  always  to  keep  this  truth  in  mind. 
There  is  a  tendency  to  investigate  one  cause  to  the 
exclusion  of  others.  There  is  a  tendency  to  regard 
only  the  immediate  steps  which  produced  a  change,  or 
criticise  only  the  immediate  results  which  that  change 
produced.  I  propose  to  regard  the  Reformation  in 
England  under  three  aspects  :  political,  moral,  and 
intellectual  ;  and  to  consider  the  larger  and  more  per- 
manent causes  and  results. 

I.  Politically  the  Reformation  expressed  the  dis- 
satisfaction of  the  national  spirit  with  the  Papal  govern- 
ment of  the  Church.  The  Middle  Ages  tell  a  continuous 
tale  of  opposition  to  Papal  interference.  In  England, 
earlier  than  in  any  other  country,  a  national  spirit  was 
developed.  The  end  of  the  thirteenth  century  saw 
England  united  under  a  truly  national  system  of  govern- 
ment. The  Pope  was  not  allowed  to  exercise  any 
influence  on  English  affairs.  Clergy  and  laity  alike  saw 
with  growing  discontent  the  drain  of  English  money  to 
the  Roman  Court.  So  far  as  the  Reformation  declared 
that  the  affairs  of  the  English  Church  should  be  managed 

1  A  Paper  read  at  the  Church  Congress,  Carlisle,   1884,     Reprinted  by 
permission. 


126     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND    PRESENT 

within  the   rcahn,  it    only  expressed    a    long-prevailing 
sentiment  of  the  English  people. 

2.  Morally,  the  organisation  of  the  mediaeval  Church 
had  become  unwieldy.  Institutions  once  useful  had 
survived  the  period  of  their  usefulness.  Monasticism 
fostered  an  indolent  class.  There  were  too  many 
clergy,  and  many  of  them  acted  unworthily  of  their 
calling.  Ecclesiastical  discipline  had  become  a  vexa- 
tious means  of  exacting  money.  Ecclesiastical  disputes 
were  common,  and  appeals  to  Rome  were  encouraged. 
A  process  in  the  Papal  court  was  costly  and  was  end- 
less. Diocesan  and  provincial  jurisdictions  were  almost 
destroyed  by  the  system  of  appeals.  The  encroach- 
ments of  Rome  had  thrown  into  confusion  the  old 
machinery  of  the  Church.  Thoughtful  men  had  long 
seen  the  dangers  of  this  disorganisation,  and  the  need 
of  reform  ;  but  national  or  provincial  Synods  were 
powerless  without  the  Pope.  Even  Europe,  united 
into  the  reforming  Councils  of  the  fifteenth  century, 
failed  to  discover  a  practicable  scheme  for  reform. 
Nothing  could  be  done  save  through  the  Papacy,  and 
the  Papacy  became  more  and  more  secular  in  its  aims, 
more  and  more  immersed  in  Italian  politics.  Mean- 
while the  feeling  of  nationality  grew  apace.  In  England 
the  rise  of  a  prosperous  middle  class  created  a  practical 
spirit  which  wished  to  see  the  Church  made  more  useful 
to  the  people.  The  associations  of  the  past  ceased  to 
outweigh  the  needs  of  the  present.  The  clergy  were 
bidden  to  feel  that  they  were  made  for  the  people, 
not  the  people  for  them.  The  moral  aspect  of  the 
Reformation  was  a  desire  for  a  simpler  Church  system, 
more  intimately  connected  with  the  aspirations  of 
national  life. 


THE    REFORMATION  127 

3.  Intellectually,  the  Reformation  movement  was 
helped  by  an  increased  knowledge  of  the  world,  of 
literature,  and  of  the  language  of  the  Scriptures.  Men 
were  not  satisfied  with  being  told  that  doctrines  or  cere- 
monies were  the  traditions  of  the  Church  ;  they  asked 
for  the  grounds  of  these  traditions  ;  they  demanded 
proof  of  their  agreement  with  the  words  of  the  Church's 
Divine  Founder. 

These  three  tendencies  were  each  of  them  of  long 
growth.  No  one  of  them  necessarily  involved  the 
overthrow  of  the  Papal  headship,  or  any  breach  in 
the  outward  unity  of  the  Church ;  but  when  they 
all  came  together,  they  created  a  mass  of  opposition 
to  the  existing  system,  which  ended  in  a  series  of 
revolts. 

The  importance  of  Wyclif  in  religious  history  lies 
in  the  fact  that  in  him  these  three  tendencies  first 
converged,  and  were  embodied  in  his  career.  At  first 
he  was  an  ecclesiastical  politician,  who  employed  his 
learning  in  finding  arguments  for  combating  the  Papal 
claims  to  interfere  in  the  affairs  of  the  English  Church. 
Next,  he  laboured  at  the  restoration  of  preaching  and  a 
revival  of  religious  life.  The  more  he  increased  in 
spiritual  earnestness,  the  more  he  felt  that  the  spiritual 
interests  of  men  were  sacrificed  to  an  overgrown 
ecclesiastical  system.  He  asserted  that  the  Church  was 
the  congregation  of  faithful  people,  and  that  the  Papal 
primacy  ought  to  be  exercised  solely  for  the  purpose  of 
ministering  to  their  needs.  His  noble  translation  of  the 
Bible  put  into  the  hands  of  Englishmen  the  whole  of 
Scripture  ;  "  Our  great  charter,"  he  calls  it,  "  written 
and  given  to  us  by  God,  on  which  alone  we  can  found 
our  claims  to  His  kingdom."     Then,  in  the  interests,  as 


128     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

he  thought,  of  theological  learning,  Wyclif  went  on  to 
attack  the  current  form  in  which  the  doctrine  of  the 
Sacrament  of  the  Altar  was  expressed.  He  invoked 
"  grammar,  logic,  natural  science,  and  the  sense  of  the 
Gospel,"  against  a  definition  which  stated  that  the  words 
of  the  priest  at  consecration  wrought  a  change  in  the 
actual  substance  of  the  bread  and  wine.  He  did  not 
deny,  nay,  he  condemned  those  who  denied,  the  real 
presence  of  Christ  in  the  Eucharist.  Christ's  body,  he 
said,  was  sacramentally  and  spiritually,  but  still  actually, 
present  in  every  part  of  the  Host,  as  the  soul  was 
present  in  the  human  body.  Wyclif  did  not  seek  to 
overthrow  the  current  belief  in  the  nature  of  the 
Sacrament ;  he  only  demanded  that  the  philosophical 
definition  of  its  operation  should  be  less  material  and 
more  spiritual.  He  thought  that  the  language  in 
ordinary  use  was  unscientific,  and  led  to  a  low  view  of 
the  Sacrament  itself,  and  to  an  undue  exaltation  of  the 
person  of  the  priest. 

Thus,  politically,  Wyclif  asserted  the  freedom  of 
England  from  Papal  interference  ;  morally,  he  strove 
to  adapt  the  ecclesiastical  system  to  the  needs  of  the 
people  ;  intellectually,  he  demanded  that  doctrines 
should  be  defined  in  accordance  with  "  logic,  natural 
science,  and  the  sense  of  the  Gospel."  Wyclif  strove  to 
gain  these  ends  within  the  existing  framework  of  the 
Church  ;  but  this  was  not  to  be.  The  Papacy  refused 
to  move  in  the  direction  of  reform  till  it  was  startled 
by  the  revolt  of  half  of  Western  Christendom.  It  then 
became  less  powerful  for  political  interference,  in  the 
countries  which  remained  in  its  obedience.  It  reformed 
the  more  glaring  abuses  in  its  ecclesiastical  system,  and 
developed    a    strong    organisation    for     defensive     and 


THE    REFORMATION  129 

offensive  purposes.     Intellectually,  it  made  little  change 
in  its  traditions. 

The  question  of  the  influence  of  the  Reformation 
on  England  can  only  be  answered  by  considering  what 
England  gained  and  lost  by  abandoning  the  Papal 
headship.  This  is  only  possible  by  comparing  the  chief 
features  of  the  English  Church,  not  with  an  idealised 
Church  of  the  Middle  Ages,  but  with  the  Roman  Church 
as  it  has  been  in  operation  since  the  Council  of  Trent. 
I  wish  to  be  as  impartial  as  inherent  prejudice  will 
allow  an  English  Churchman  to  be.  You  will  pardon 
me  if  my  language  sounds  cold,  as  I  briefly  indicate 
a  few  considerations  of  the  results  of  the  three  causes 
which  I  have  traced. 

I.  Politically,  the  Reformation  largely  developed 
the  national  spirit  of  England,  through  the  need  of 
antagonism  to  the  Papacy  and  the  Pope's  adherents. 
First,  the  war  with  Spain,  which  was  a  direct  result  of 
the  Reformation,  directed  England  into  the  career  of 
colonisation,  to  which  her  present  greatness  is  due. 
Next,  the  breach  between  England  and  her  chief  neigh- 
bours on  the  Continent  produced  a  feeling  of  isolation, 
which  forced  Englishmen  to  think  and  act  for  them- 
selves. The  national  spirit  of  England  became  more 
resolute,  adventurous,  and  practical.  Englishmen  were 
driven  to  face  actual  facts,  and  deal  with  them  promptly 
and  sensibly.  It  was  this  training  which  enabled  Eng- 
land to  overcome  her  competitors  for  the  mastery  j of 
the  New  World ;  but  she  would  not  have  overcome 
them  permanently  unless  she  had  also  shown  a  greater 
civilising  power,  which  means  greater  honesty,  greater 
straightforwardness,  greater  love  of  justice.  National 
morality,  it  must  be  remembered,  can  only  be  judged 

I 


I30     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND    PRESENT 

by  comparison.  I  cannot  say  that  before  the  Reforma- 
tion England's  policy  showed  a  greater  care  for  right- 
eousness than  did  that  of  her  neighbours  ;  but  since 
the  Reformation  there  have  been  many  conspicuous 
instances  in  which  England  has  shown  a  more  exalted 
standard  of  national  morality.  England  has  gained 
by  the  Reformation  in  the  more  sterling  qualities  of 
national  life.  On  the  other  hand,  it  must  be  admitted 
that  Europe  as  a  whole  lost  somewhat  by  the  breach 
of  its  religious  unity.  Its  aims  became  narrower,  more 
self-interested,  less  concerned  with  matters  of  European 
policy.  As  regards  England  itself,  increased  strength  of 
national  character  was  won  by  a  sacrifice  of  larger 
interests.  The  Reformation  intensified  England's  ten- 
dency to  isolation.  It  deepened,  if  it  did  not  create, 
the  less  attractive  features  of  the  English  character — 
a  narrowness  of  sympathy,  an  inability  to  recognise 
problems  which  lie  outside  the  sphere  of  immediate 
practice,  and  a  disregard  of  logical  principles  of  national 
action.  This  was  in  a  great  measure  England's  loss 
from  the  Reformation. 

2.  I  turn  to  the  ecclesiastical  system  of  England  as 
it  was  affected  by  the  Reformation.  First,  as  regards 
the  mechanism  for  the  self-government  of  the  Church, 
the  Reformation  did  not  go  far  enough.  The  Papal 
headship  was  abolished,  and  the  temporal  privileges  of 
that  headship  were  transferred  to  the  Crown.  Nothing 
was  done  to  re-establish  the  organisation  of  the  Church 
as  a  self-governing  community  in  spiritual  matters.  It 
must  be  noted  that  the  loss  of  its  old  mechanism  was 
the  result  of  a  long  course  of  Papal  aggression.  The 
English  Church  inherited  confusion,  and  the  time  of 
the  Reformation  was  not  propitious  for  amending  that 


THE    REFORMATION  131 

confusion.  The  royal  supremacy  took  the  place  of 
the  Papal  supremacy  ;  but  the  Church  as  a  spiritual 
community  gained  no  greater  liberty  of  action.  As  a 
consequence  of  this,  the  English  Church  has  shown 
too  great  a  tendency  to  Erastianism.  Its  discipline  is 
defective  ;  it  lacks  a  logical  or  settled  system  of  juris- 
diction. This  must  be  admitted  ;  but  again  an  impartial 
comparison  with  other  countries  suggests  some  com- 
pensation. The  English  Church  has  been  in  close 
relation  with  the  national  life.  Its  demands  may  not 
have  been  so  precise  as  those  of  the  Roman  Church,  but 
its  pervading  influence  has  been  greater.  It  has  had  no 
exact  theory  of  the  relations  between  Church  and  State  ; 
but  the  exact  theory  of  Rome  has  never  been  successful 
in  practice.  A  theory  may  be  very  imposing ;  but  when 
it  is  whittled  away  by  separate  concordats,  which  are 
being  constantly  eluded,  it  ceases  to  command  much 
respect.  The  English  Church  may  still  repair  its  system 
in  the  future  ;  but  I  doubt  whether  it  has  much  to  learn 
from  the  success  of  the  system  of  the  Church  of  Rome. 
As  regards  the  relations  of  the  Church  to  the 
people,  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  changes  made  at 
the  time  of  the  Reformation  were  too  exclusively  made 
in  the  interests  of  the  prosperous  middle  class.  The 
old  services  were  adjusted  to  their  intelligence,  were 
made  simpler  and  more  practical.  Moreover,  the 
exigencies  of  a  time  of  change  demanded  one  intelli- 
gible and  uniform  mode  of  worship.  Everything 
combined  to  make  the  new  system  narrower  and 
smaller  than  the  old  one.  It  contained  fewer  elements 
which  appealed  to  higher  and  lower  minds  ;  it  aimed 
more  exclusively  at  the  average  man ;  it  had  little 
outlying  region  of  mysticism  in  which  finer  souls  might 


132     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

wander  at  will  ;  it  did  not  enthral  the  unintelligent  by 
appeals  to  their  feelings  ;  it  disregarded  the  teaching  of 
the  eye  ;  it  aimed  at  practical  edification,  at  an  orderly, 
but  comprehensive  organisation  of  religious  society.  I 
pass  by  the  question  how  far  the  Anglican  Church  did 
the  utmost,  or  the  best,  that  the  times  allowed.  She 
certainly  achieved  one  great  object,  which  marks  her  as 
distinct  from  other  deviations  from  the  old  system.  She 
preserved  intact  the  institution  of  the  Church  and  of  the 
Sacraments  as  they  were  in  the  Apostolic  age.  By  so 
doing  she  retained  the  possibility  of  strong  organic  life. 
On  the  other  hand,  she  lost  some  of  the  more  imagina- 
tive elements  of  religious  feeling  ;  adopted  a  form  of 
worship  which  was  simple,  but  somewhat  inflexible  ; 
and  became  too  exclusively  connected  with  the  aspira- 
tions and  desires  of  the  active  and  influential  classes  in 
English  society.  Hence,  in  a  time  of  spiritual  awaken- 
ing, she  could  find  no  room  for  John  Wesley,  and  was 
so  well  satisfied  with  her  own  work  of  edification  that 
she  looked  coldly  on  the  work  of  evangelisation.  In 
another  time  of  spiritual  awakening  she  lost  the  alle- 
giance of  many  fine  minds,  which  missed  in  her  the 
definite  assertion  of  the  principles  of  ecclesiastical  life. 

Admitting  these  defects,  let  us  again  turn  to  com- 
parison with  the  history  of  the  Roman  Church.  The 
Church  of  England  has  not,  at  all  events  until  recent 
times,  produced  the  same  number  of  individuals  who 
have  scaled  the  higher  regions  of  the  spiritual  life.  She 
has  not  in  the  past  succeeded  in  laying  so  firm  a  hold 
upon  the  masses.  But  she  has  undoubtedly  succeeded 
in  carrying  Christianity  into  the  principles  which  direct 
the  life  and  conduct  of  the  community,  in  a  larger 
degree  than  prevails  in  any  other  country.      Her  direct- 


THE    REFORMATION  133 

ness,  her  demand  for  a  sense  of  individual  responsibility, 
her  full  offer  to  all  of  the  means  of  grace — these  things 
have  tended  to  keep  strong  in  Englishmen  that  which 
is  the  chief  element  of  the  religious  life,  a  sense  of  sin. 
The  more  elaborate  system  of  the  Roman  Church  has 
not  been  so  successful  in  this  point  in  those  countries 
where  it  has  worked  unimpeded.  This  consideration 
seems  to  me  to  be  a  very  weighty  one  ;  for  the  sense  of 
sin  is  the  most  powerful  bulwark  against  the  tempta- 
tions of  unbelief.  On  their  capacity  for  quickening  and 
keeping  alive  this  sense  of  sin,  the  future  of  all  religious 
organisations  will  more  and  more  closely  depend.  The 
strength  of  the  Church  of  England  lies  in  the  fact  that 
she  has  created  and  maintained  a  high  average  of 
practical  Christianity.  The  national  difficulties  which 
impressed  upon  her  in  the  sixteenth  century  somewhat 
limited  aims  have  now  passed  away.  Made  wise  by 
experience,  she  has  the  promise  of  a  great  future. 
Without  any  change  in  her  constitution  she  has  made 
her  system  more  definite,  has  found  room  for  higher 
aspirations,  has  shown  that  she  can  influence  the 
masses,  has  developed  great  missionary  activity,  and 
has  spread  her  influence  in  every  quarter  of  the  globe. 
Only  in  later  years  has  she  begun  to  reap  the  full 
harvest  of  the  Reformation. 

3.  Intellectually,  I  see  no  losses  to  be  set  against 
the  gain  of  a  frank  acceptance  of  Holy  Scripture  as  the 
sole  basis  of  doctrine  and  Church  government,  and  a 
recognition  that  the  sense  of  the  Gospel  has  to  be  deter- 
mined by  strict  adherence  to  "  logic,  grammar,  and 
natural  science."  The  modest  claim  of  the  Anglican 
Church  to  be  "  a  witness  and  keeper  of  Holy  Writ  " 
has  been  fully  maintained.     The  greater  pretension  of 


134     THE    CHURCH,  PAST    AND    PRESENT 

the  Roman  Church  to  inherent  powers  of  authoritative 
interpretation  has  not  proved  so  efficient  a  barrier 
against  unbeHef.  An  extensive  frontier  affords  weak 
places  for  attack.  The  process  of  slow  retreat  from  un- 
tenable positions  is  hard  to  accomplish.  The  imposing 
appearance  of  strength  and  organisation  vanishes  on 
closer  inspection.  English  theology  has  shown  a  capa- 
city for  facing  the  actual  questions  which  perplex  men's 
minds.  It  has  been  strong  in  its  readiness  to  accept 
the  historic  method,  and  in  its  desire  to  obtain  scientific 
results  ;  it  has  done  this  in  a  careful  and  sober  spirit, 
which  has  made  it  powerful  to  mediate  between  con- 
flicting opinions.  The  English  Church  has  been  espe- 
cially successful  in  retaining  the  allegiance  and  directing 
the  thought  of  vigorous  minds. 

To  sum  up  these  fragmentary  remarks.  The  teach- 
ing and  the  personality  of  Wyclif  expressed  and  fore- 
shadowed the  great  characteristics  of  the  English 
Reformation.  The  influence  of  the  Reformation  in 
England  was  strong  in  directing  our  national  history 
and  moulding  our  national  character.  The  reformed 
Church  of  England  has  kept  alive  the  spirit  of  personal 
religion  in  a  way  which  contrasts  favourably  with  other 
religious  organisations.  Her  defects  have  been  serious^ 
but  they  are  not  irremediable,  and  she  has  shown  a 
capacity  to  remedy  them.  In  the  region  of  thought 
she  has  held  the  strongest  position,  for  she  has  elected 
to  stand  by  the  strength  of  her  great  central  fort,  the 
power  of  the  Scriptures  as  the  Word  of  God,  and  the 
historical  truth  of  the  facts  which  they  relate. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

THE  RISE  OF  DISSENT  IN  ENGLAND 

Bv  THE  Rev.  J.  HUNT,  D.D. 

Why  is  not  the  National  Church  the  Church  of  the 
nation  ?  To  this  question  there  are  many  answers, 
according  to  the  different  readings  of  history.  Un- 
fortunately, the  history  of  religious  parties  in  England 
is  rarely  written  with  impartiality.  Facts  are  sometimes 
ignored  and  often  denied,  so  that,  instead  of  history, 
we  have  merely  the  colouring  or  the  party  prejudices 
of  the  writers.  They  follow  each  other,  tell  the  same 
stories  without  further  inquiry,  misrepresent  the  men 
whom  they  dislike,  praise  those  with  whom  they  agree, 
and  end  in  a  representation  of  history  which  is  essen- 
tially false. 

This  essay  is  intended  to  be  an  historical  inquiry. 
The  writer  wishes  to  keep  close  to  undisputed  facts, 
and  to  make  only  such  inferences  as  he  believes  can 
undeniably  be  deduced  from  the  facts.  He  wishes  to 
write  in  a  conciliatory  spirit,  not  to  provoke  opposition, 
which,  however,  he  scarcely  hopes  to  avoid  so  long  as 
there  are  any  who  to  truth  prefer  their  party  or  their 
prejudices. 

The  first  and  most  direct  answer  to  the  question 
we  have  asked  is  to  be  found  in  the  principles  of  a 
narrow  Puritan  party.  It  is  difficult  to  speak  on  this 
subject   with   sufficient   caution,  because  of  the  vague 


136     THE    CHURCH,  PAST    AND   PRESENT 

and  indefinite  use  of  the  word  Puritan.  A  custom  has 
of  late  arisen  which  speaks  of  Catholics  and  Puritans, 
or  Anglicans  and  Puritans,  as  if  all  Puritans  were  one 
definite  class,  and  distinct  from  the  Church  of  England, 
while  some  who  were  not  Puritans  are  regarded  as  con- 
stituting the  Church.  But  all  Puritans  were  Church- 
men. They  strove  to  avoid  separation.  Independents, 
Baptists,  and  all  who  separated  from  the  Church,  ought 
not  to  be  classed  with  Puritans.  As  a  matter  of  history, 
the  name  has  been  applied  to  all  who  embraced  the 
doctrinal  system  of  Calvin.  Bishop  Montague  called 
the  framers  of  the  Lambeth  Articles  Puritans  ;  and 
according  to  Bishop  Sanderson,  Richard  Hooker  him- 
self, as  a  doctrinal  Calvinist,  was  called  a  Puritan. 
The  name  was  also  used  as  a  general  term  for  all 
persons  who  were  more  than  usually  serious,  who  had 
morning  and  evening  worship  in  their  families,  and 
were  more  strict  than  others  in  their  religious  duties. 
King  James  I.  reckoned  all  as  Puritans  who  did  not 
approve  of  his  arbitrary  government.  Richard  Baxter 
said  that  in  his  time  a  Puritan  was  one  that  was  for 
archbishops,  bishops,  liturgies,  and  ceremonies,  as  he 
had  always  been. 

When  we  speak  of  a  narrow  Puritan  party,  we 
mean  those  represented  by  Thomas  Cartwright — those 
who  believe  that  in  the  New  Testament  there  is  a 
complete  system  of  ecclesiastical  polity,  that  Christ 
established  a  Church  with  authority  to  confer  Orders, 
without  which  no  man  had  a  right  to  preach  or  to 
administer  Sacraments,  and  that  this  Church  polity  was 
not  episcopal,  but  presbyterial.  The  minutest  points 
of  government  and  ritual  were  supposed  to  have  been 
determined  by  Christ,  as  they  had   been   by  Moses  in 


RISE   OF   DISSENT    IN   ENGLAND       137 

the  old  dispensation.  The  argument  was  that  if  care 
was  taken  for  the  ornaments  of  the  Temple,  much  more 
for  those  of  the  Christian  Church.  If  the  bars,  pins, 
and  besoms  of  the  Tabernacle  were  of  Divine  appoint- 
ment, it  was  not  likely  that  the  government  and  the 
ritual  of  the  Christian  Church  would  be  left  undeter- 
mined. The  elder  Leighton  to  the  same  efifect  said, 
that  if  God  remembered  the  bars  of  the  ark,  it  was  not 
likely  that  He  should  forget  the  pillars  of  the  Church. 
Even  the  genius  of  Milton,  led  away  by  the  exigencies 
of  an  argument,  failed  to  realise  that  the  Christian 
Church  had  more  of  the  spirit  and  less  of  the  letter 
than  the  older  dispensation.  He,  too,  thought  that 
if  God  cared  so  much  for  the  inferior  building,  much 
more  for  the  more  glorious  structure. 

Those  who  speak  of  Puritans  as  if  they  were  not 
Churchmen  suppose  a  Catholic  or  Anglo-Catholic  party. 
There  was,  indeed,  at  one  time  such  a  party.  It  was 
represented  by  Gardiner,  Tonstal,  Bonner,  and  others, 
who  held  all  the  Roman  Catholic  doctrines  taught  in 
the  Church  of  England  before  the  Reformation,  with 
the  exception  that  they  acknowledged  the  supremacy 
of  the  King  in  the  place  of  the  supremacy  of  the  Pope. 
But  to  this  they  returned  in  the  days  of  Queen  Mary, 
and  when  Elizabeth  came  to  the  throne  they  refused 
the  oath  of  royal  supremacy.  They  were  strictly  and 
properly  Roman  Catholics.  In  the  time  of  Elizabeth 
there  was  no  such  party  as  is  now  called  the  Catholic 
or  High  Church  party.  Those  who  were  not  Roman 
Catholics  were  definitely  on  the  side  of  the  Protestant 
Reformation.  Most  of  them  had  been  in  exile,  and 
were  the  friends,  and  to  some  extent  the  disciples,  of  the 
Swiss  Reformers.     The  majority  of  them  would  not  have 


138     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND    PRESENT 

objected  to  the  establishment  of  a  Presbyterian  poHty 
and  Presbyterian  ritual.  But  it  was  the  will  of  Queen 
Elizabeth  that  the  hierarchy  or  a  hierarchy  be  con- 
tinued. Her  policy  was  to  make  outward  changes  as 
few, as  possible.  Such  men  as  Jewel,  Grindal,  Sandys, 
Pilkington,  Parkhurst,  and  others,  who  afterwards  became 
bishops,  were  indifferent  as  to  what  polity  was  estab- 
lished. Parkhurst,  when  Bishop  of  Norwich,  said  in 
plain  words,  that  he  wished  the  Church  of  England  had 
been  modelled  after  the  pattern  of  the  Church  of  Zurich. 
There  were  many  things  enforced  by  the  Queen  which 
they  did  not  like,  but  they  reckoned  that  to  conform 
was  the  wisest  thing  they  could  do.  Sandys,  who  at  one 
time  strongly  objected  to  the  ceremonies,  recommended 
that  they  should  be  laid  aside  gradually  and  quietly.  A 
beautiful  house,  he  said,  was  not  to  be  pulled  down  and 
levelled  to  the  ground  because  there  was  "  a  window 
awry  or  some  little  eyesore."  Some  of  the  same  bishops 
were  afterwards  strict  in  enforcing  the  ceremonies,  be- 
cause they  were  ordered  by  royal  authority.  The  whole 
of  the  bishops  and  leading  clergy  in  Elizabeth's  time 
were  Calvinists,  strong  Protestants,  in  a  sense  Puritans. 
The  real  division  was  into  Erastians  and  Anti-Erastians. 
Those  who  conformed  and  enforced  conformity  did  so 
because  they  believed  the  habits  and  ceremonies  were 
indifferent  in  themselves,  but  the  royal  or  state  autho- 
rity should  be  obeyed.  Those  who  scrupled  conformity 
did  so  because  they  believed  that  the  things  imposed 
were  not  indifferent,  that  they  had  a  meaning,  and  that 
the  Queen  or  Parliament  had  no  right  to  enforce 
them. 

If  the  Reformation  in  any  way  affected  the  consti- 
tution of  the  Church  of  England  besides  the  introduc- 


RISE   OF   DISSENT    IN   ENGLAND       139 

tion  of  Protestant  doctrines,  it  was  in  establishing  the 
supremacy  of  the  civil  ruler  as  supreme  head  of  the 
Church.  The  Act  of  King  Henry's  time  conferred  on 
him  the  power  to  redress,  reform,  &c.,  all  such  errors, 
heresies,  &c.,  whereby  any  manner  of  spiritual  authority 
or  jurisdiction,  &c.  The  same  power  was  restored  to 
Elizabeth.  The  Church  which  had  authority  in  con- 
troversies of  faith  was  the  Church  of  which  she  was 
the  governor.  Convocation  has  had  no  actual  authority 
since  the  Act  of  Submission.  The  argument  which 
underlies  the  whole  of  Hooker's  Polity,^  which  is  fully 
set  forth  in  the  eighth  Book,  is  the  supremacy  of  the 
civil  ruler  over  the  Church.  Hooker  even  defended 
the  title  given  to  Henry  of  "  Supreme  Head  of  the 
Church,"  on  the  ground  that  the  civil  ruler  had  the 
same  authority  in  the  Christian  Church  which  the 
Jewish  kings  had  in  the  State  Church  of  the  Jews. 
He  did  not  defend  the  divine  right  of  episcopacy  as 
opposed  to  what  Cartwright  maintained  of  the  divine 
right  of  presbytery.  He  defended  the  authority  of  the 
king  or  queen  to  rule  the  Church.  The  first  writer 
in  the  Church  of  England  after  the  Reformation  who 
advocated  the  divine  institution  of  episcopacy  was 
Bancroft,  afterwards  Archbishop  of  Canterbury.  In 
a  famous  sermon,  preached  at  St.  Paul's  Cross  in 
1588,  he  took  the  ground  for  episcopacy  which  Cart- 
wright^   had  taken  for    presbytery,    but   far  above  the 

^  Burnet  says  that  this  Act  was  understood  by  the  old  learning  as  no 
interference  with  ecclesiastical  matters,  but  by  the  new  learning  that  in  such 
matters  the  magistrate  had  full  authority  ("  History  of  Reformation,"  P.  iii., 
B.  iii.).     As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  took  away  all  power  from  Conrocation. 

"  So  much  is  said  in  the  sermon  of  the  supremacy  of  the  civil  magistrate 
over  the  Church  that  Hallam  says  Bancroft  did  not  advocate  the  jus  diviuiwi 
of  Episcopacy,  but  only  stated  the  fact  of  its  existence,  and  that  "  in  no  strong 
terms"  ("Constitutional  History,"  vol.  i.,  p.  396,  n.).     He  quotes  Cardwell 


I40     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

ecclesiastical  authority  he  put  the  civil.  He  reproached 
those  represented  by  Cartwright  as  being  the  only 
party  of  Christians  in  the  world  that  had  framed  an 
ecclesiastical  polity  in  which  the  civil  ruler  was  not 
supreme.  It  was  on  the  same  principle  that  the  Eliza- 
bethan bishops  enforced  the  habits  and  the  ceremonies. 
Archbishop  Parker  said  that  he  cared  nothing  for  sur- 
plice, cope,  tippet,  or  wafer  bread,  but  he  did  care  for 
the  authority  that  enjoined  them.^  Bishop  Aylmer  told 
his  recalcitrant  clergy  that  they  were  the  Queen's  ser- 
vants ;  the  surplice  was  the  queen's  livery,  and  they 
must  wear  it. 

The  principles  of  this  narrow  party  of  Puritans 
were  an  entire  innovation  on  the  principles  of  the 
PvUglish  Reformation.  They  believed  that  they  found 
an  ecclesiastical  polity  in  the  Scriptures,  and  therefore 
they  refused  to  acknowledge  the  supremacy  of  the 
Queen  in  matters  which  concerned  the  Church.  The 
controversy  evoked  by  Cartwright  turned  on  this  ques- 
tion. Whitgift,  who  answered  Cartwright  before  Hooker 
did,  found  no  Church  polity  in  the  New  Testament,  and 
maintained  that  the  civil  ruler  should  be  supreme  in 
the  government  of  the  Church.  These  principles  ac- 
corded with  the  facts  of  the  Reformation,  which  had 
been  effected  mainly  by  the  sovereign  and  Parliament. 
Henry  compelled  the  clergy  to  submission  ;  Edward 
and  his  advisers  took  the  side  of  the  Reforming  bishops, 
who  were  the  minority  in  his  reign  ;  and  Elizabeth  sus- 
pended all  who  refused  to  acknowledge  her  supremacy 
and  embrace  the  reformed  faith. 

as  saying  the  contrary,  which  has  certainly  been  the  general  belief.  The  ser- 
mon is  said  to  have  been  evoked  by  the  Mar-Prelate  Tracts,  which  were 
written  not  by  a  Puritan,  but  by  a  Separatist,  if  John  Penry  was,  as  is 
supposed,  the  author.  '  Quoted  in  Hook's  "  Parker." 


RISE   OF   DISSENT    IN   ENGLAND       141 

It  is  common  now  with  some  party  historians  to 
follow  Peter  Heylyn  and  the  Nonjuror  Brett,  in 
ascribing  the  scruples  of  the  Puritans  to  the  influence 
of  Calvin.  Heylyn  even  credits  him  with  having  cajoled 
the  English  bishops  not  to  enforce  the  ceremonies. 
The  great  Reformer  of  Geneva  is  not  at  the  present 
time  in  high  favour,  but  he  was  certainly  not  respon- 
sible for  the  scruples  of  the  Nonconforming  Puritans. 
Calvin  was  a  man  of  peace,  a  great  reconciler.  He 
was  willing  to  sacrifice  much  for  unity.  He  wished 
to  unite  all  the  Protestant  Churches  into  one  great 
Reformed  Church,  and  he  looked  to  the  Church  of 
England  as  the  natural  and  proper  leader  in  such  an 
enterprise.  Heylyn  has  a  story  of  Cranmer's  refusing 
Calvin's  help,  giving  as  a  reason  that  "  he  knew  the 
man,"  but  like  many  of  Peter's  stories  it  does  not  rest  on 
any  authority.  Cranmer  always  called  Calvin  his  "  dear 
brother  in  Christ."  Great  deference  was  always  paid 
by  our  Reformers  to  Calvin's  judgment.  The  first 
Prayer  Book  of  Edward  is  believed  to  have  been 
revised  at  his  suggestion,  and  changes  introduced 
which  he  recommended.  The  sentences,  exhortation, 
confession,  and  in  a  sense  the  absolution,  as  they  now 
stand  in  our  Prayer  Book,  were  in  substance  taken 
from  Calvin's.  He  thought  the  revised  book  still  con- 
tained tolerabiles  irieptice,  trifles  that  might  be  endured, 
but  he  urged  conformity  on  all  the  Puritans.  When 
the  troubles  at  Frankfort  were  ended  he  rejoiced, 
though  the  victory  was  on  the  side  of  those  who  had 
contended  for  the  use  of  the  English  Prayer  Book. 
He  regretted  that  the  Queen  enforced  the  ceremonies, 
but  it  was  due  to  him,  to  Bucer,  and  to  Peter  Martyr, 
that   many   of   the    Puritans   did    not    make   an    actual 


142     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

separation.  These  all  advised  conformity  as  the  wisest 
thing  to  be  done  in  the  circumstances.  Beza  gave  the 
same  advice  to  a  congregation  of  Baptists  at  Banstead 
in  Surrey.  They  were  to  continue  to  frequent  their 
Parish  Churches.  When  some  Puritans  succeeded  in 
forming  a  presbytery  or  classt's,  it  was  to  be  in  subjection 
to  the  existing  government  of  the  Church.  The  classt's 
was  not  to  ordain  but  to  recommend  to  the  bishops 
proper  persons  for  ordination. 

On  the  principle  that  opposites  generate  each  other 
this  narrow  party  produced  another.  Peter  Heylyn 
calls  the  Puritans  a  "  faction,"  and  so  they  were  if  they 
are  all  to  be  identified  with  Cartwright,  but  this  cannot 
be  done.  Heylyn's  party  was  also  a  "  faction,"  and  of 
later  origin.  It,  too,  was  an  innovation  on  the  prin- 
ciples of  the  Reformed  Church  of  England.  The  old 
Episcopal  regime  of  the  Church  had  been  retained  by 
the  will  of  Elizabeth,  but  it  was  not  regarded  as  of 
divine  institution  or  essentially  necessary  to  the  con- 
stitution of  a  Church.  The  orders  of  foreign  and 
non-Episcopal  Churches  were  recognised  by  Act  of 
Parliament.^  Men  like  Travers  at  the  Temple,  and 
Whittingham,  Dean  of  Durham,  who  had  been  or- 
dained by  presbyters,  were  licensed  and  instituted  by 
the  bishops.  The  Huguenots  were  openly  protected 
and  their  Orders  acknowledged,  and  there  are  cases 
of  Scotch  Presbyterians  preaching  in  the  Church  of 
England.  The  narrow  party  among  the  Puritans  had 
taken  very  high  ground  in  the  assertion  of  the  divine 
right  of  Presbytery.  The  new  party  was  to  rival  them 
in  the  same  claim  for  Episcopal  government. 

'   13  Eliz.  c.  12,  "An  Act  for  the  Ministers  of  the  Church  to  be  of  Sound 
Religion."     It  is  quoted  at  length  in  Marsden's  "  Early  Puritans,"  p.  227. 


RISE   OF   DISSENT   IN    ENGLAND       143 

By  the  time  of  Archbishop  Laud  this  new  faction 
had  become  so  strong  that  it  was  able  in  great  measure 
to  revolutionise  the  Church.  The  communion  tables, 
which  took  the  place  of  the  altars  ejected  at  the  Refor- 
mation, and  which  were  to  stand,  as  the  rubric  still 
directs,  in  the  body  of  the  church  or  chancel,  were 
removed  to  the  place  where  the  altars  formerly  stood, 
and  placed  altar-wise  by  the  east  wall,  and  people  were 
told  to  bow  to  them  as  Roman  Catholics  bow  to  the 
altars.  We  do  not  know  if  in  Laud's  time  the  clergyman 
turned  with  the  tables,  and,  contrary  to  the  rubric,  stood 
on  the  west  side  instead  of  the  north. 

This  party  not  only  made  changes  in  the  worship 
and  ritual  of  the  Church,  they  even  succeeded  to  some 
extent  in  changing  the  doctrine.  Hitherto  the  clergy 
accepted  the  theology  of  Calvin.  All  the  Reformers,  so 
far  as  their  sentiments  are  known,  were  Calvinists.  As 
the  doctrinal  system  of  Calvin  is  now  all  but  universally 
abandoned,  the  question  is  merely  one  of  antiquarian 
interest.  We  may  examine  it  with  the  same  impartiality 
that  we  would  a  petrified  fossil.  But  the  Calvinism  of 
the  Standards  of  the  Church  of  England  is  a  fact  which 
no  one  who  has  not  party  interests  to  serve  would 
ever  have  thought  of  denying.  The  arguments  of  such 
writers  as  Archbishop  Lawrence  are  not  worth  a 
moment's  consideration.  His  main  argument  on  that 
side  is  that  our  Articles  were  taken  from  the  Augsburg 
Confession,  which  was  compiled  by  Melanchthon,  and 
he  was  not  a  Predestinarian.  It  is  true  that  some  of 
our  Articles  are  taken  from  this  Confession,  but  it  is  also 
true  that  this  Confession  has  no  Article  on  Predestina- 
tion, and  our  Reformers  thought  proper  to  compile  one. 
Lawrence  has  another  argument,  which  is,  that  the  sub- 


144     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND    PRESENT 

ject  was  not  yet  under  discussion  when  our  Articles 
were  written  ;  but  Calvin's  Institutes  were  first  published 
in  1534,  and  that  was  a  famous  book  with  all  the  Re- 
formers. The  contrary  doctrine  was  first  preached  at 
Cambridge,  and  struck  with  astonishment  the  old  ortho- 
dox Churchmen  as  much  as  they  had  been  struck  by 
the  doctrine  of  the  jus  divinum  of  Episcopacy.  It  was 
at  once  denounced  as  a  dangerous  novelty.  The  heads 
of  the  Church — Canterbury,  York,  and  London — imme- 
diately met  and  asserted  in  the  strong  language  of  the 
Lambeth  Articles  the  doctrines  which  were  embodied 
in  the  Standards  of  the  Church,  The  chief  Anglican 
theologians  in  the  time  of  Elizabeth  and  James  were 
Calvinists.  Not  merely  Hooker  and  Whitgift,  but  some 
of  the  ablest  defenders  of  Episcopal  government.  Hall, 
Carleton,  and  Davenant  were  sent  to  the  Synod  of  Dort 
to  support  the  Calvinists  of  Holland.  Some  sneer  at 
this  as  merely  an  eccentricity  of  the  Scottish  king,  but 
it  was  in  accordance  with  the  prevailing  belief  of  the 
Church  at  that  time.  James  said  of  Bertius,  a  Dutch 
Arminian,  that  he  was  so  shameless  as  to  identify  his 
doctrine  with  that  of  the  Church  of  England.  By  the 
time  of  Charles  I.  the  change  was  very  marked.  Not 
many  years  had  passed  since  the  Synod  of  Dort,  when 
some  one  asking  what  the  Arminians  held,  was  answered, 
that  they  held  all  the  best  bishoprics  and  deaneries  in 
the  kingdom.^ 

It  is  not  easy,  nor  is  it  necessary  for  our  purpose, 

^  The  Church  of  England  not  only  adopted  Calvin's  doctrine  of  Predesti- 
nation, but  also  his  doctrine  of  the  Eucharist.  We  often  hear  of  "  the  bare 
meal"  and  "the  nude  commemoration"  of  the  Calvinists,  but  Calvin  ex- 
pressly repudiated  the  view  of  the  sacrament  commonly  ascribed  to  Zwingli. 
He  calls  the  Lord's  Supper  a  spiritual  banquet,  a  feast  on  Christ's  sacrifice,  a 
real  participation  of  Christ,  not  a  simple  figure,  but  the  verity  joined  with  the 
symbol.     If  any  one  were  to  compare  what  Calvin  wrote  on  the  Sacraments 


RISE   OF   DISSENT    IN   ENGLAND       145 

to  trace  all  the  influences  at  work  from  the  Long  Par- 
liament to  the  time  of  the  Restoration  of  Charles  II. 
The  Civil  War  has  been  called  the  bishops'  war,  but  this 
is  scarcely  correct,  for  many  of  the  bishops,  as  Williams, 
Hall,  Ussher,  and  others,  had  opposed  the  faction  which 
had  revolutionised  the  Church.  They  had,  indeed,  to 
share  the  misfortunes  of  Laud's  party,  but  this  was  owing 
to  their  political  action.  They  did  not  wish  to  oppose 
the  king.  The  time  of  the  Commonwealth  has  been 
called  the  reign  of  the  Puritans,  and  the  hardships 
which  some  of  the  clergy  had  to  bear  are  ascribed  to 
Puritan  persecution.  But  those  here  called  Puritans 
were  entirely  different  from  Cartwright's  party  in  the 
time  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  The  members  of  the  Long 
Parliament  were  regular  members  of  the  Church  of 
England,  and  in  nowise  opposed  to  Episcopal  govern- 
ment in  the  Church.  The  Westminster  Assembly  of 
Divines,  if  we  exclude  the  Scotch  contingent  brought  by 
political  necessity,  were  almost  to  a  man  of  the  general 
rank  and  file  of  the  English  clergy,  who  had  received 
regular  Episcopal  ordination,  and  were  satisfied  with 
the  constitution  of  the  Church  as  it  stood  in  the  time  of 
Queen  Elizabeth.  It  is  only  in  a  conventional  sense 
that  they  are  called  Presbyterians.  Some  of  the  chief 
of  them,  as,  for  instance,  Herbert  Palmer,  had  received 
promotion  at  the  hands  of  Archbishop  Laud.  They 
agreed  to  a  Presbyterian  government  as  the  best  thing 
they  could  do  in  their  circumstances.  That  they  were 
Calvinists  in  doctrine  shows  what  a  strong  hold  the 
doctrines   of  Calvin   still    had  on  a  great  body  of   the 

with  the  fifth  Book  of  Hooker,  the  conclusion  will  be  irresistible  that  Hooker 
had  Calvin  before  him  when  he  wrote.  There  is  not  only  the  same  doctrine, 
but  often  the  same  language  and  illustrations.  Calvin's  doctrine  is  not  to 
be  confounded  with  Cartwright's,  which  Hooker  refutes. 

K 


146     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

English  clergy.  They  were  now  the  party  in  power, 
and  it  is  contrary  to  all  that  we  know  of  parties  in 
triumph  if  those  on  the  other  side  do  not  suffer. 

During  the  Commonwealth  were  heard  the  voices 
of  two  men,  afterwards  bishops,  who  well  deserved  to 
be  heard.  These  were  Jeremy  Taylor  and  Edward 
Stillingffeet.  They  were  at  that  time  on  the  losing 
side,  and  were  more  alive  to  the  evils  of  intolerance 
than  they  might  have  been  in  their  hour  of  prosperity. 
Taylor  advocates  the  liberty  of  prophesying^  on  the 
broadest  principles,  and  with  resources  of  ecclesiastical 
learning  such  as  have  been  rarely  equalled.  He 
called  it  terrible  folly  to  expect  all  men  to  be  of  one 
mind.  There  was  room  in  heaven  for  men  of  different 
opinions,  and  so  there  ought  to  be  on  earth.  Unity  may 
be  desirable,  but  charity  is  even  better  than  unity.  The 
Apostles'  Creed  is  the  summary  of  the  Christian  faith, 
but  it  is  not  even  necessary  to  believe  this  to  be  a 
Christian.  It  is  enough  to  confess  that  Jesus  is  the 
Christ.  There  is  no  heresy  where  there  is  a  good  life. 
The  party  which  called  itself  the  Catholic  Church 
assumed  the  office  of  judge  of  heresy,  and  then  went  on 
adding  new  articles  to  the  Christian  faith.  But  those 
who  jndge  are  as  likely  to  be  in  error  as  those  who  are 
judged.  Protestants  who  take  the  Bible  as  their 
standard  ought  to  be  tolerant  of  those  who  differ  from 
them,  because  of  the  uncertainty  of  the  meaning  of 
many  things  in  the  Bible.  Every  religion  ought  to  be 
tolerated  except  it  can  be  shown  to  be  injurious  to  the 
State.  God  will  not  be  angry  with  a  man  because  he 
is  in  error  if  he  has  done  his  best  to  find  the  truth,  and 
we  should  not  be  less  tolerant  than  God  is. 

1  Published  in  1647. 


RISE   OF   DISSENT    IN   ENGLAND       147 

Edward  Stillingfleet  ^  wished  to  see  the  whole 
nation  united  in  one  Broad  National  Church.  His 
argument,  like  Hooker's,  was  addressed  to  those  who 
believed  in  the  divine  institution  of  the  Presbyterian 
government.  These  must  have  been  very  few,  for  many 
of  the  leaders  of  them,  who  at  this  time  were  called 
Presbyterians,  agreed  with  Hooker  and  Stillingfleet  that 
there  was  no  definite  ecclesiastical  polity  in  the  New 
Testament.  Stillingfleet  said  that  the  old  Catholic 
Church  was  broad,  embracing  different  parties  and 
admitting  different  doctrines  and  ceremonies.  A 
Church  is  a  society  for  public  worship,  and  all  its  out- 
ward forms  should  be  arranged  according  to  what  is 
convenient.  At  first  a  Church  was  probably  a  society 
with  a  pastor  or  deacon,  but  when  a  Church  became 
co-extensive  with  a  nation,  a  different  form  was  not 
merely  lawful  but  necessary.  The  Jewish  Church  was 
constituted  after  the  fashion  of  the  civil  polity,  and  if 
Jesus  is  to  be  over  His  house  as  Moses  was  over  that  of 
the  Jews,  then  the  Christian  Church  should  receive  its 
polity  from  the  State. 

At  the  Restoration  of  Charles  there  was  a  golden 
opportunity  for  strengthening  the  National  Church  on 
its  true  basis,  as  here  expounded  by  Stillingfleet,  with 
the  liberty  of  prophesying  which  had  been  advocated 
by  Jeremy  Taylor.  But  Stillingfleet  at  the  Restoration 
was  too  young  to  have  any  influence  with  those  in 
authority,  and  Taylor  was  away  in  Ireland.  The  party 
called  Presbyterians  told  the  king  that  they  wished  to 
see  a  wide  National  Church.  Very  few  of  them 
objected  to  Episcopacy  in  itself.  Notwithstanding  the 
sneer  of  Jeffries,  "  Baxter  for  bishops  ! "  it  is  true  that, 

^  The  "  Irenicum  "  was  published  in  1659. 


148     THE    CHURCH,  PAST   AND    PRESENT 

though  against  what  is  understood  by  a  hierarchy  or 
prelacy,  they  wished  an  Episcopacy  in  which  the 
bishops  would  act  with  the  presbyters.  They  also 
wished  the  creation  of  suffragan  bishops,  as  some  of  the 
dioceses  were  too  large  for  one  man  to  govern. 

The  King  issued  a  warrant  for  a  conference  on  the 
Prayer-Book,  in  which  both  parties  were  to  meet, 
consult,  and  determine  on  the  changes  to  be  made. 
When  they  met,  the  Puritans  were  not  treated  as 
equals,  but  as  the  vanquished  or  disinherited.  The 
Bishop  of  London  said  that  they  had  asked  the  Con- 
ference, and  now  they  must  say  what  they  wanted. 
This  was  clever  policy,  worthy  of  a  statesman  like 
Sheldon,  but  when  the  question  was  the  peace  and 
unity  of  the  Church,  something  else  was  wanted  than 
clever  policy.  The  Puritans  asked  some  things  which 
were  desirable  and  would  have  been  beneficial  to  the 
Church,  but  they  also  asked  many  things  which  were 
trifling  and  unimportant.  They  would  have  been  satis- 
fied with  much  less  than  they  asked,  but  they  were  at 
the  mercy  of  men  more  disposed  for  retaliation  than  for 
unity.  The  Prayer-Book  was  in  some  matters  made 
more  objectionable  than  it  was  before.  The  great 
opportunity  was  lost.  The  blame  is  generally  con- 
sidered to  have  rested  with  Sheldon.  "  This,"  Coleridge 
once  wrote,  "  was  the  incendiary ;  this  Sheldon,  the 
most  virulent  enemy  and  poisoner  of  the  English 
Church.  She  still  feels  the  taint  in  her  very  bones." 
Perhaps  this  is  too  strong,  but  Dissent  may  now  be 
said  to  have  really  begun.  Those  called  Puritans  had 
been  hitherto  members  of  the  Church  of  England, 
unwiUing  to  separate.  Now  they  are  called  Noncon- 
formists, and  are  in  separation.     The  ejected  ministers 


RISE   OF   DISSENT    IN   ENGLAND       149 

had  popular  preaching  power,  and  their  adherents 
among  the  laity  represented  a  very  large  proportion  of 
the  wealth  and  industry  of  the  nation.  Bishop  Burnet 
says  that  for  many  years  after  the  Restoration  the 
Churches  were  but  thinly  attended.  It  was  not  till 
towards  the  end  of  the  century  that  they  began  to  fill. 
The  Nonconformists  had  decreased  by  a  third  or  a 
fourth,  yet  some  years  later  Lord  Barrington  could  say 
that  they  were  still  a  fourth  part  of  the  population  and 
were  "  men  of  substance  and  of  great  influence  in  the 
nation." 

Not  many  years  had  passed  before  some  on  both 
sides  began  to  devise  schemes  of  accommodation  or 
comprehension.  The  King  had  proved  as  unreliable  to 
the  victorious  party  as  he  had  been  faithless  to  the 
vanquished.  Now  both  found  that  they  were  brothers 
born  for  adversity.  The  primary  difficulty  with  the 
Nonconformists  was  re-ordination.  Even  the  most 
liberal  of  them  had  an  idea  that  there  was  something 
mystical  or  mysterious  about  ordination.  Art.  XXV. 
of  the  XXXIX.  seems  to  suggest  that  Orders,  Con- 
firmation, and  Extreme  Unction  were  merely  "  a  corrupt 
following  of  the  Apostles."  There  is,  indeed,  the  other 
alternative  that  they  are  states  of  life  allowed  in  Scrip- 
ture, which  does  not  seem  a  description  applicable  to 
any  of  them.  The  Puritans,  that  is  some  of  them, 
thought  it  sacrilege  to  take  a  second  ordination,  but 
common-sense  Churchmen,  like  Bishop  Wilkins,  ex- 
plained that  re-ordination  simply  meant  compliance 
with  the  present  law.  Orders  implied  order.  To  leave 
some  ceremonies  open  was  a  common  Puritan  request, 
and  one  which  might  wisely  have  been  granted.  Some 
which  were  called  "  nocent "  would  in  time  have  been 


I50     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

found  to  be  in-"  nocent."  Another  reasonable  request 
was  that  they  might  use  the  Prayer-Book  without  giving 
**  assent  and  consent  "  to  all  and  everything  contained 
therein.     This  is  now  virtually  granted. 

Richard  Baxter  once  said  that  "  if  all  the  Epis- 
copalians had  been  like  Archbishop  Ussher,  all  the 
Presbyterians  like  Stephen  Marshall,  and  all  the  Inde- 
pendents like  Jeremiah  Burroughs,  the  breaches  of  the 
Church  could  soon  have  been  healed."  But  this  spirit 
was  not  that  which  prevailed.  There  were  other  men  who 
would  yield  nothing.  Many  books  were  written  against 
toleration,  and  compulsion  was  declared  to  be  the 
sure  way  to  make  "good  Catholics."  St.  Augustine  wai> 
quoted,  who  had  testified  that  the  Donatists  flourished 
so  long  as  they  werb  tolerated  by  Constantine,  but  they 
were  soon  extinct  after  Honorius  made  laws  for  their 
suppression.  Herbert  Thorndike  saw  no  other  remedy 
for  Nonconformity  but  to  compel  all  to  embrace  the 
Catholic  faith  as  set  forth  in  the  first  six  General 
Councils.  This  was  the  duty  of  those  in  authority. 
To  comprehend  Presbyterians  was  to  put  them  on 
equality  with  the  Catholic  Church.  Samuel  Parker, 
afterwards  Bishop  of  Oxford,  said  that  the  pretence  of 
conscience  was  the  greatest  of  all  disturbers  of  govern- 
ment, and  that  Christianity  itself  would  be  annihilated  if 
the  State  did  not  use  its  authority  to  suppress  the  sects. 
As  the  State  was  so  remiss  in  its  duty,  another  writer 
proposed  the  restoration  to  Convocation  of  its  eccle- 
siastical authority,  for  that  was  the  proper  body  to  dis- 
tinguish between  heresy  and  the  Catholic  faith.  That 
it  should  be  again  assembled,  the  writer  said,  was  abso- 
lutely necessary,  for  there  were  even  pleas  current  for 
"universal  unlimited  toleration." 


RISE   OF    DISSENT    IN   ENGLAND       151 

Now  we  come  to  a  new  development  in  our  Church 
history.     James  II.  became  a  Roman  Catholic.    William 
of  Orange,  a  Presbyterian,  came  in  his  place.     There 
was  no  more  trust  to  be  put  in  princes.     Hitherto,  to 
use   StiUingfleet's   comparison,    Church    and   kmg,    like 
Hippocrates'  twins,   laughed  and  wept   together.     But 
now  the  new  faction  had  taken  the  ground  of  the  old 
Cartwright  faction,  that  the  Church  should  rule  itself, 
and  be  independent  of  all  secular  authority.    The  Lower 
House  of  Convocation  asserted  this  principle  by  some 
acts  of   lawless  disobedience.     It  refused  to  obey  the 
royal  mandate,  and  claimed  a  right  to  meet  when  and 
where  it  liked,  independently  of  the   Upper   House  or 
any  higher  authority.     The  Lower   House  pursued  its 
course  of  rebellion  till  George  I.  found  it  necessary  to 
put  it  to  silence  as  a  disturbing  element  both  in  Church 

and  State. 

The  great  comprehension  scheme  of   1689  missed 
its  way.     Tillotson  had  recommended  that  it  should  be 
referred  to  Convocation.    A  High  Churchman  was  chosen 
prolocutor,  and  its  fate  was  soon  sealed.    With  one  party 
there  was  great  rejoicing ;  South  expressed  his  delight 
that  the  "  rabble  "  had  been  excluded  and  the  "  thief  " 
not  allowed   an    easy  entrance,  but   the    ejected   party 
still  showed  its  unwillingness  to  be  entirely  separated 
from   the   National   Church.      After    the    Act    of    Uni- 
formity   they    had    made    an    agreement    to    continue 
to    receive   the    sacrament    at    their    Parish    Churches. 
Though  not  conforming  in  all  things  they  wished   to 
be  regarded  as  members   of   the    Established   Church. 
This   they   showed   by   occasional   conformity;    but    it 
raised   opposition   from    some    of    both    parties.      The 
famous  De  Foe  was   the   chief  objector  on   the  Non- 


152     THE    CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

conformist  side.  As  a  political  Dissenter,  it  appeared 
to  him  as  merely  a  mode  of  evading  the  Test  Act.  His 
argument  was  the  easy  one,  that  if  attending  church 
was  right  going  to  chapel  was  wrong,  and  contrari- 
wise if  going  to  chapel  was  right  going  to  church  was 
wrong.  To  dissent  and  yet  occasionally  to  conform 
was  to  deny  the  lawfulness  of  Dissent.  Howe,  as  an 
occasional  Conformist,  answered  De  Foe.  He  argued 
that  the  Church  of  England  was  not  essentially  defec- 
tive ;  its  defects  were  only  the  accidentals.  It  was, 
therefore,  the  duty  of  Nonconformists  to  conform  as 
far  as  they  could  with  a  good  conscience.  De  Foe's 
alternative  of  God  or  Baal  was  not  regarded  as  serious, 
but  only  as  a  play  of  wit.  Though  a  Nonconformist 
by  circumstances  he  had  never  tried  to  persuade  any 
one  to  Nonconformity.  To  this  De  Foe  answered, 
that  when  a  man  has  become  so  indifferent  to  the 
interests  of  Dissent,  it  is  his  duty  to  conform  at  once 
and  entirely. 

In  1703  a  bill  was  brought  into  Parliament  to 
prohibit  occasional  conformity.  Moderate  men  on 
both  sides  regarded  this  as  an  infringement  of  the 
rights  of  Nonconformists.  On  one  side  it  was  defended 
by  such  men  as  Sacheverell,  who  wished  to  see 
Dissenters  effectually  excluded  from  all  civil  offices. 
The  interests  of  the  State  required  the  suppression  of 
all  Dissent.  The  object  of  occasional  conformity  was 
said  to  be  the  undermining  of  the  Church.  Leslie,  the 
Nonjuror,  supported  Sacheverell,  and  to  use  his  elegant 
language,  stripped  the  "  wolves "  of  their  shepherd's 
clothing.  He  rejoiced  to  find  that  the  spirit  of 
intolerance  had  its  counterpart  in  the  Scotch  Presby- 
terian  Church,   which   had  just    petitioned    Parliament 


RISE   OF   DISSENT   IN   ENGLAND       153 

that  in  any  bill  for  toleration  the  benefits  of  it  might 
not  be  extended  to  the  Episcopal  Church  in  Scotland. 
Other  Nonconformists  besides  Howe  defended  occa- 
sional conformity.  They  pleaded  that  they  were 
unwilling  Dissenters,  and  had  always  been  opposed  to 
separation.  One  of  the  chief  of  them  was  Lord  Bar- 
rington,  father  of  the  famous  Bishop  of  Durham.  He 
called  it  an  injury  and  a  hardship  if  Nonconformists 
were  not  allowed  to  communicate  at  their  Parish 
Churches.  Bishop  Burnet  opposed  the  bill  as  incon- 
sistent with  the  principles  and  practice  of  the  Church 
of  England  since  the  Reformation.  In  the  time  of 
Queen  Elizabeth  Roman  Catholics  held  civil  offices, 
and  practised  occasional  conformity  until  they  were  for- 
bidden by  the  Pope.  Both  Burnet  and  De  Foe  said 
that  the  tendency  of  occasional  conformity  was  to 
reconcile  Dissenters  to  the  Church,  while  the  denial 
of  it  tended  to  confirm  them  in  their  Nonconformity. 

The  result  which  many  foresaw  came  in  its  time. 
The  Nonconformists  gradually  conformed.  Only  a 
small  remnant  was  left,  which  became  Arian  and 
ultimately  Unitarian.  In  the  third  decade  of  the 
eighteenth  century  many  are  known  to  have  conformed. 
Among  them  were  Joseph  Butler  and  his  friend  Thomas 
Seeker  ;  Isaac  Madox,  who  died  Bishop  of  Worcester  ; 
and  Josiah  Hort,  who  became  Archbishop  of  Tuam.  It 
may  be  difficult  to  trace  the  causal  nexus,  but  as  a 
matter  of  fact  the  decay  of  the  Dissenting  interest 
became  a  subject  of  lamentation  among  Nonconformists. 
With  the  accession  of  the  House  of  Hanover  the  spirit 
of  toleration  had  increased.  The  Stuarts  were  gone, 
and  with  them  the  Sheldons,  the  Thorndikes,  the 
Sacheverells,  the  Souths,  and  the  Leslies.    The  Lower 


154     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

House  of  Convocation  had  paid  the  penalty  of  its 
intolerance.  It  last  effort  was  to  censure  Bishop 
Hoadly,  that  great  but  much  abused  prelate,  whose 
whole  life  was  a  continuous  battle  for  the  toleration  of 
all  sects  and  parties.  He  lived  to  a  great  age,  and  saw 
the  complete  triumph  of  the  principles  for  which  he  con- 
tended. His  biographer's  words  are,  "  He  was  so  happy 
as  to  live  long  enough  to  reap  the  full  reward  of  his 
labours,  to  see  his  Christian  and  moderate  opinions 
prevail  over  the  Kingdom  in  Church  and  State,  to  see 
the  Nonconformists  at  a  low  ebb  for  want  of  the 
opposition  and  persecution  they  were  too  much 
accustomed  to  expect  from  both,  many  of  them 
ministers  desiring  to  receive  re-ordination  from  his 
hands,  to  see  the  general  temper  of  the  clergy  entirely 
changed,  the  bishops  preferring  few  or  none  of 
intolerant  principles,  and  the  clergy  claiming  no  in- 
herent authority  but  what  is  the  natural  result  of  their 
own  good  behaviour  as  individuals  in  the  discharge  of 
their  duty."  Nonconformity  had  fallen  almost  to  zero. 
Some  of  the  ministers  said  that  they  were  starved  into 
conformity,  but  it  was  not  dead,  and  it  had  a  new  life  in 
the  future.  The  Presbyterians  may  be  said  to  have 
ceased  to  exist.  The  Independents  and  Baptists  had 
always  been  separated,  and  were  not,  properly  speaking, 
Puritans.  It  seems  correct  to  say  that  they  had  the 
new  life  from  the  Evangelical  or  Methodist  revival, 
which  was'  a  movement  within  the  Church,  though  it 
produced  communities  which  are  practically  Dissenters. 
The  Wesleyan  community,  which  is  the  largest  Protes- 
tant Church  in  the  world,  the  Anglican  not  excepted, 
are  Nonconformists  as  it  were  by  accident.  They 
never  made  any  formal  separation,  and  if  they  have  ever 


RISE   OF   DISSENT    IN   ENGLAND       155 

shown  hostility  it  has  been  in  the  way  of  retaUation  for 
having  been  treated  as  schismatics. 

The  Church  of  England  is  still  the  National  Church. 
The  nationality  is  the  basis  of  its  unity.  The  enemies 
of  the  Church's  nationality  are  the  two  factions  of 
which  we  have  spoken,  who,  each  in  its  own  way,  have 
maintained  that  there  is  in  the  New  Testament  a 
definite  ecclesiastical  polity,  and  therefore  the  Church 
should  not  be  subject  to  any  secular  authority.  Tolera- 
tion and  comprehension  are  still  our  ideals.  Let  us 
unite  as  a  nation  for  national  worship,  and  tolerate  each 
other  as  far  as  toleration  is  possible  or  practical.  But 
let  us  look  honestly  at  facts.  The  Church  of  England 
at  the  Reformation  was  stamped  as  a  Protestant  Church. 
By  a  licence  of  speech  it  may  be  called  Catholic,  but 
it  is  not  Catholic  in  the  sense  in  which  Catholic  is  the 
antithesis  of  Protestant.  At  the  Reformation  it  separated 
from  the  Papal  Church,  and  accepted  the  same  doctrines 
as  were  taught  by  the  continental  Reformers.  It  has 
become  a  custom  with  some  party-writers  to  speak  of 
the  foreign  Reformers  as  having  instituted  new  Churches 
while  we  reformed  the  old.  This  is  made  on  the  as- 
sumption that  Episcopacy  is  an  essential  of  a  Church, 
but  this  distinction  was  never  made  by  any  of  the 
Reformers  either  in  England  or  on  the  continent. 
They  all  professed  to  reform  the  old  Church.  Luther, 
Hooker  says,  formed  no  new  Church.^  The  Church  of 
England  is  the  same  that  was  established  by  Augustine, 
not  in  virtue  of  a  successive  hierarchy  but  in  virtue 
of  a  successive  people.  It  had  its  origin  from  the 
Church  of  Rome.      It  shared  for  centuries  the  errors 

^  As  if  we  were  of  opinion  that  Luther  invented  a  new  Church  !     No. — 
II.  iii.,  s.  I. 


156     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

of  the  Church  of  Rome,  but  these  were  cast  off 
when  it  took  its  stand  as  a  separate  National  Church. 
Through  all  its  changes  it  was  still  the  Church  of  the 
Nation. 

The  recent  decision  of  the  Pope  concerning  the 
invalidity  of  Anglican  Orders  is  one  of  the  most  for- 
tunate things  that  could  have  happened  to  the  Church 
of  England  in  its  present  stage.  It  has  been  what  the 
Germans  call  an  Aufkldriing,  a  clearing  up  of  the  whole 
business.  It  accords  with  the  indelible  Protestant 
character  which  was  stamped  on  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land at  the  Reformation.  The  Reformed  Ordinal  did 
not  contemplate  making  a  priest  in  the  Roman  Catholic 
or  Jewish  sense  of  a  priest.  In  the  revisions  of  the 
Liturgy  everything  that  seemed  to  have  such  a  meaning 
was  carefully  eliminated.  The  mere  fact  of  the  removal 
of  the  old  altars,  and  the  excision  of  even  the  word 
"  altar  "  from  the  Prayer-Book,  is  sufficient  evidence  of 
that,  and  but  for  the  ambiguity  of  the  word  priest  it 
too  would  have  been  excluded.  The  Archbishops  justly 
retorted  on  the  Pope  a  Tu  quoquc,  by  showing  that 
the  primitive  Ordinals  had  not  the  words  which  the 
Pope  said  were  necessary  to  make  a  sacrificing  priest, 
which  by  the  Pope's  argument  proves  that  his  own 
Orders  are  not  valid,  and  that  the  very  idea  of  a  sacri- 
ficing priest  is  an  innovation  in  the  Christian  Church. 
The  power  of  working  the  miracle  which  the  priest 
professes  to  perform  by  the  consecration  of  the  bread 
and  wine,  is  denied  to  the  English  clergy  in  virtue  of 
the  denial  of  transubstantiation  in  our  Articles  and  the 
substitution  of  the  doctrine  of  a  spiritual  presence  only 
to  the  worthy  receiver. 

The  Pope  took  one  clear  strong  point,  and  that  one 


RISE   OF    DISSENT   IN   ENGLAND      157 

was  sufficient  for  his  purpose,  but  there  were  many 
other  considerations.  On  what  is  called  the  Catholic 
ground,  that  in  virtue  of  the  hierarchy  we  continue  one 
with  the  Church  Catholic,  our  Reformers  certainly  vio- 
lated the  canons  which  were  made  for  the  preservation  of 
unity.  A  canon  of  the  Council  of  Nicaea  requires  for 
the  appointment  of  a  bishop  the  sanction  of  all  the 
bishops  of  the  province,  but  the  bishops  in  possession 
of  the  sees  did  not  approve  of  a  Protestant  Consecration. 
When  Elizabeth  came  to  the  throne  they  were  sus- 
pended, not  by  ecclesiastical  but  by  lay  authority — all 
except  Kitchen  of  Llandaff,  a  man  of  doubtful  character, 
who  turned  with  every  wind.  One  of  the  most  noto- 
rious falsifications  of  history  is  that  the  Church  of 
England  was  reformed  by  the  bishops  and  Convocations. 
It  is  a  simple  historical  fact  that  the  first  Convocation 
in  Elizabeth's  reign,  that  of  1559,  passed  a  series 
of  resolutions  strongly  in  favour  of  Roman  Catholic 
doctrines  and  against  the  Reformed.  Elizabeth  had 
to  wait  for  the  sanction  of  Convocation  till  she 
got  a  Protestant  Convocation  willing  to  do  as  she 
wished.  She  issued  a  mandamus  to  four  of  the  bishops 
to  consecrate  an  archbishop.  They  refused.  She  then 
very  properly  did  just  what  the  head  of  a  National 
Church  ought  to  have  done.  She  found  some  Pro- 
testant bishops  who  had  been  deprived  under  Mary  who 
were  willing  to  consecrate,  and  by  her  regal  power  she 
undertook  to  make  good  whatever  was  defective.  On 
Catholic  principles  there  was  a  defect  which  she  could 
not  make  good.  These  bishops  had  no  ecclesiastical 
jurisdiction  ;  they  were  not  bishops  in  office.  The  sees 
to  which  some  of  them  were  nominated  were  not 
vacant,  and  on  Catholic  principles  there  cannot  be  two 


158     THE    CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

bishops    in    one    see.     This    subject   was    exhaustively 
discussed    in   the   time   of  the    Nonjurors.       They   said 
that  the  deprived  bishops  were  still  the  bishops  of  their 
sees,   and    those   who   took   their    places  were    merely 
intruders.       No    civil    power    can     deprive     a    bishop. 
Elizabethan   bishops   might  confer  such  orders  as  were 
necessary    for    a    Protestant    Church,    but    they  could 
not    be    valid    according    to    Catholic    law    as     it   was 
interpreted     by    the    Nonjurors.       There    were     other 
objections  to  the  consecration  of  Parker.     Barlow,  who 
was  the  consecrator,  did  not  believe  in  the  necessity  of 
consecration.     He  said,  as  Cranmer  had  done,  that  elec- 
tion by  the  king  or  the  people  was  enough  without  any 
consecration;  so  that  if  intention  was  necessary,  he  had  no 
intention  to  make  any  such  consecration  as  would  now 
be  considered  Catholic  by  either  Roman  or  Anglican. 
Miles   Coverdale   is    known    to    have    been    a   decided 
Puritan,    and    appeared    at     the     consecration     in    his 
Geneva  gown,  as  did  also  John  Hodgkins.       Moreover, 
Coverdale   was   not   a    bishop    on    Catholic    principles. 
He  had  been  intruded   into  the  See   of    Exeter  while 
John   Voysey   the   lawful    bishop   still   lived,   who    was 
restored  in  Queen   Mary's  time.      Protestants   may  be 
perfectly  satisfied  with  Parker's  consecration,  but  Anti- 
Protestants  can  scarcely  be  satisfied  with  Orders  through 
a  succession  in  which  there  is  so  much  uncertainty,  and 
where  the  secular  has  governed  the  ecclesiastical. 

The  Pope  by  his  decision  had  declared  that  the 
English  Church  can  only  be  re-united  with  Rome  by  an 
unreserved  submission.  It  would  have  been  to  the  Papal 
interest  to  have  acknowledged  Anglican  Orders.  We 
might,  like  the  Maronites  in  the  East,  have  been  allowed 
our  own  Liturgy  and  our  own  ceremonies,  and  we  might 


RISE   OF    DISSENT    IN   ENGLAND       159 

gradually  have  drawn  nearer  and  nearer  to  the  Pope 
in  all  things,  just  as  occasional  conformity  among  Non- 
conformists tended  to  entire  conformity.  Again,  we  may 
be  thankful  for  the  Pope's  decision,  for  now  we  know 
that  we  can  never  effect  union  with  Rome  by  merely 
doing  as  Rome  does.  Our  experience  in  past  times  of 
the  Pope's  interference  is  not  such  as  to  make  us  long 
for  it  again.  It  is  better  that  we  keep  our  ground  as 
an  independent  National  Church.  Those  in  England 
who  adhere  to  the  Pope  have  now  their  full  rights  as 
citizens.  We  do  not  wish  to  see  them  make  progress, 
but  this  need  not  hinder  the  exercise  of  charity  which 
is  the  bond  of  all  virtues.  They  have  declared  by 
following  the  rites  of  a  foreign  Church,  and  by  sub- 
mission to  a  foreign  bishop,  that  in  religion  they  are 
not  Englishmen  but  foreigners. 

The  corporate  reunion  of  Protestant  Dissenters  has 
not  the  same  impossibility  as  with  the  Church  of  Rome, 
but  the  difficulties  are  not  to  be  ignored.  Their  absorp- 
tion into  the  National  Church  seems  from  our  point  of 
view  as  desirable.  But  members  of  Dissenting  com- 
munities are  not  of  our  opinion.  Some  see  advantages 
in  the  very  fact  of  separation,  and  some  even  see  evil  in 
the  connection  of  the  Church  with  the  State,  regarding 
the  secular  as  in  itself  unholy.  Their  Church  organisa- 
tions are  the  means  of  the  defence  and  propagation  of 
principles  which  are  to  them  of  great  ^importance,  and 
in  some  cases  they  are  agencies  for  reaching  classes 
which  have  not  been  reached  by  the  National  Church. 
Some  of  these  communities  were  begun  with  sacri- 
fices, and  are  kept  together  by  self-denial.  They  may 
have  originated  from  forefathers  whose  memories  are 
revered  for  their  unwavering   adherence   to    principles 


i6o     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND    PRESENT 

which  are  still  deemed  sacred.  They  may  have  been 
centres  of  religious  life  when  the  lamp  burned  but  dimly 
in  the  National  Church,  and  they  may  be  so  again. 
That  they  will  at  once  give  up  their  present  position  as 
separate  communities  is  not  to  be  expected  ;  but  the 
clergy  might  often  show  a  better  spirit  towards  them. 
As  a  rule,  the  average  Dissenter  is  a  more  tolerant  man 
than  the  average  Churchman.  The  Churchman's  idea 
of  a  Nonconformist  is  generally  taken  from  Nonconfor- 
mist newspapers,  where  the  predominant  spirit  is  that  of 
political  or  militant  Nonconformity.  This  is  like  taking 
the  idea  of  Churchmen  from  party  Church  newspapers 
where  they  appear  in  the  least  amiable  light. 

There  are  occasions  in  which  the  clergy  and 
Nonconformist  ministers  might  work  together,  but 
they  are  not  many.  Here  we  are  met  by  a  difficulty 
the  same  in  kind  as  that  of  asking  them  to  break  up 
their  present  Church  organisations.  By  the  parochial 
system,  which  is  a  necessary  part  of  the  National  Church 
idea,  the  clergyman  of  a  parish  is  bound  to  do  the  best 
he  can  for  his  parish  and  for  every  parishioner.  But 
Dissent  is  a  discordant  element.  This,  it  may  be  said, 
is  a  disadvantage  to  the  Nonconformist,  and  so  an 
argument  against  the  principle  of  a  National  Church. 
To  this  objection  Dr.  Chalmers  rightly  answered,  that 
the  question  is  not  one  of  justice  between  Church  and 
Church,  sect  and  sect,  but  one  of  justice  to  the  whole 
population.  It  is  the  misfortune  of  the  present  Non- 
conformists that,  having  been  so  long  excluded  from  the 
universities,  they  have  failed  to  reach  a  high  standard  of 
education.  A  Dissenting  minister  is  not  necessarily  an 
educated  man,  while  a  clergyman  of  the  Established 
Church  is  generally  one  who  has  had  the  highest   ad- 


RISE   OF    DISSENT   IN   ENGLAND      i6i 

vantages  of  public  school  and  university  training.  This 
has  resulted  in  what  may  be  called  a  class  distinction. 
The  old  Nonconformists  strove  hard  to  give  their 
ministers  a  high  class  education,  but  the  Noncon- 
formity which  has  sprung  up  under  Methodist  in- 
fluence has  been  more  indifferent.  A  change,  however, 
is  gradually  going  on.  Many  of  the  clergy  can  now 
boast  no  more  than  the  meagre  training  of  a  clerical 
college.  On  the  other  hand,  now  that  the  universities 
are  open,  the  Nonconformists  begin  to  have  a  higher 
education.  It  is  yet  to  be  seen  if,  with  this  higher 
education,  they  will  remain  Nonconformists.  There 
does  not  appear  to  be  any  abstract  reason  why  they 
should  not,  and  so  it  may  come  to  pass  that  a  Non- 
conformist minister  in  a  parish  may  be  a  Senior 
Wrangler  at  Cambridge  or  a  double-first  at  Oxford, 
while  his  brother,  the  rector  or  vicar,  may  rejoice  in 
nothing  higher  than  a  pass  degree.  We  may  lament  our 
divisions,  and  show  the  healing  spirit  though  we  may  not 
have  the  healing  power.  At  the  moment  in  the  last 
century  when  there  was  the  greatest  likelihood  of  re- 
union, Dr.  Doddridge  proposed  that  the  conforming  and 
nonconforming  clergy  should  occasionally  preach  for 
each  other.  This  met  the  approbation  of  Archbishop 
Herring,  but  there  are  old  Canons  made  under  other 
circumstances  by  which  this  is  illegal.  It  might  per- 
haps be  well  to  deal  with  some  of  these  Canons  on  the 
principle  which  has  been  adopted  in  other  cases,  that  of 
Solvitur  Ambulaitdo. 

We  have  tried  to  state  the  facts  concerning  the 
National  Church.  It  is  by  its  very  constitution  a  broad 
Church,  and  it  is  better  that  it  should  embrace  parties 
which  differ  than  not  exist  at  all.     But  it  must  also  be 

L 


1 62     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

tolerant  to  those  that  are  without.  Comprehension 
may  not  at  present  be  practical,  but  the  clergy  should 
show  such  a  spirit  of  charity  as  at  least  will  not  produce 
further  alienation.  Hostility  has  been  provoked  by  the 
conduct  of  many  Churchmen.  The  Wesleyan  com- 
munity is  not  likely  to  forget  such  an  act  as  that  of  an 
amiable  bishop  who  refused  to  allow  "  Rev."  to  be 
prefixed  to  the  name  of  a  departed  minister  in  an 
epitaph  in  a  country  churchyard.  The  body  of  Non- 
conformists are  not  likely  to  forget  the  attitude  once 
assumed  by  the  National  Society  under  the  influence  of 
such  men  as  Denison  and  Manning,  when  it  opposed 
the  conscience  clause,  and  even  proposed  to  exclude 
from  the  benefits  of  secular  education  all  children  not 
baptized  in  the  Established  Church.  Intolerance  is 
hard  to  tolerate,  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  these  things 
will  be  regarded  merely  as  the  eccentricities  of  indi- 
viduals for  which  the  Church  is  not  responsible.  It  is 
gratifying  to  contemplate  the  good  spirit  which  at  the 
present  time  generally  prevails  among  all  Churches  and 
sects  towards  each  other.  The  Greek  as  well  as  the 
Latin  Church  repudiates  the  Anglican  claims  to  such 
Orders  as  make  a  sacrificing  priest,  but  the  friendly 
intercourse  which  has  lately  appeared  between  the 
Russian  Church  and  the  English  ought  to  be  welcomed 
and  encouraged.  It  is  pleasant  also  to  see  that  the 
Pope  of  Rome,  though  he  does  not  admit  the  Anglican 
claims  to  Catholicism,  is  no  more  "  the  Man  of  Sin  " 
and  the  great  "  Antichrist,"  but  the  "  Venerable 
Brother  "  of  Canterbury  and  York. 


CHAPTER  IX 
THE  ORIGINS  OF  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT 

By  the  editor 

The  precise  origin  of  Church  government  is  an 
obscure  question,  complicated  not  only  by  the  general 
scantiness  of  our  information  on  the  Apostolic  Age  and 
that  which  followed  it,  but  by  the  special  difficulty  that 
things  must  have  been  in  a  fluid  and  transitional  state. 
One  disturbing  influence  was  the  indefinite  authority 
held  in  reserve  by  Apostles,  another  the  waning 
ministry  of  gifts,  which  for  some  time  crossed  the  grow- 
ing ministry  of  office.  Nor  is  it  altogether  an  advan- 
tage that  the  question  is  a  battlefield  of  controversy. 
If  partisan  zeal  has  done  good  service  in  collecting 
evidence,  it  has  also  done  much  harm — never  more 
than  in  our  own  time — by  its  persistent  appeal  to  other 
motives  than  the  love  of  truth.  Fortunately  we  need 
not  go  into  the  whole  question.  If  Church  government 
is  as  much  ordained  of  God  as  secular,  the  powers  that 
be  of  every  lawful  Church  must  have  in  any  case  as 
much  divine  sanction  as  the  Empire  under  Nero.  But 
is  any  particular  form  of  Church  government  in  itself 
unlawful  ?  Whatever  be  the  sin  of  its  founders,  is  a 
later  generation  living  quietly  under  it  living  in  sin  ?  Is 
Episcopacy,  for  example,  or  Presbyterianism  so  ordained 
of  God  that  a  Church  otherwise  governed  is  in  a  state  of 

disobedience  ? 

163 


1 64     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

Now  we  are  all  agreed  that  there  is  a  distinction 
between  means  and  ends,  and  that  in  some  cases  God 
has  made  some  particular  means  necessaryfor  a  particular 
end.  If  therefore  Church  government  is  a  means  and 
not  an  end,  this  does  not  hinder  but  that  some  par- 
ticular form  of  it  may  have  been  ordained  of  God  as 
necessary,  or  at  any  rate  as  conducive  to  the  end. 
Whether  this  be  the  fact  is  plainly  a  different  question, 
which  it  would  be  rash  to  decide  by  a  priori  considera- 
tions of  doctrine  or  philosophy  or  personal  inclination. 
The  general  tone  of  Scripture  may  give  us  a  presump- 
tion, perhaps  a  strong  presumption,  one  way  or  the 
other  ;  but  we  are  simply  begging  the  question  if  we 
allow  mere  presumptions,  however  strong,  to  overrule 
clear  historical  facts.  It  may  be  true  that  we  start  with 
"  presuppositions,"  as  they  are  too  politely  called  ;  but 
I  hope  we  are  not  all  of  us  too  contemptuous  of  truth 
to  alter  them  if  truth  requires  it.  These  however  are 
truisms,  albeit  two-edged  truths  as  well,  and  the  only 
reason  for  reciting  them  is  the  loud  complaint  of  late  in 
certain  quarters  that  Bishop  Lightfoot  (of  all  men)  was 
fool  enough  to  overlook  them.  However,  if  any 
particular  form  of  Church  government  is  ordained  of 
God  as  the  only  lawful  one,  there  must  be  historical 
proof  of  the  fact,  and  there  can  be  no  other  proof  of  it. 
If  no  direct  command  of  Christ  or  His  Apostles  can  be 
shown  like  that  which  enjoins  the  Lord's  Supper,  it  will 
suffice  to  show  that  the  historical  facts  cannot  reason- 
ably be  explained  without  assuming  that  such  a  com- 
mand was  given.  The  proof  may  be  indirect  ;  but  it 
must  be  historical,  and  purely  historical. 

Let  us  first  make  sure  of  our  terms.  When  the 
bishop  first  appears  in  history,  he  holds  his  office  for 


ORIGINS   OF   CHURCH   GOVERNMENT     165 

life,  standing  singly  at  the  head  of  his  presbyters,  and 
governing  the  congregations  of  a  single  city.  Country 
bishops  governing  villages  cannot  be  more  than  a 
secondary  growth  of  the  office,  for  the  Gospel  spread 
from  city  to  city,  and  more  slowly  to  the  country 
districts.  So  far  as  I  am  aware,  there  is  no  early 
instance  of  a  bishop  not  holding  his  office  for  life. 
Even  translations  were  a  novelty  in  the  third  century, 
and  were  forbidden  by  the  Nicene  Council.  Neither  do 
we  meet  with  two  bishops  governing  one  Church,  for 
Narcissus  of  Jerusalem,  at  the  age  of  116,  is  hardly  a 
real  exception  either  to  this  or  to  the  life-long  tenure  ; 
or  with  two  bishops  governing  distinct  Churches  in  one 
city,  unless  Hippolytus  at  Portus  be  an  exception  ;  or 
with  a  bishop  governing  several  cities  at  once.  Thus 
the  city  bishop  as  just  defined  will  be  the  earliest  type 
of  the  bishop.  It  is  not  till  Teutonic  times  that  we  find 
bishops  of  tribes,  like  the  Goths  or  the  Kentishmen,  and 
the  modern  territorial  bishop  is  a  much  later  develop- 
ment. Of  course  the  city  bishop,  the  country  bishop, 
the  tribal  bishop,  and  the  territorial  bishop  are  equally 
legitimate  forms  of  the  office  ;  but  the  early  Church  was 
necessarily  governed  by  city  bishops,  because  the 
ancient  world  was  as  definitely  constituted  by  cities 
as  the  modern  world  is  constituted  by  territorial  states. 
The  bishop  might  have  a  country  district  attached  to 
his  city  ;  but  a  bishop  of  several  cities  was  as  unthink- 
able as  the  King  of  Europe  is  now. 

Let  us  next  set  down  some  undisputed  facts. 
Whether  the  so-called  bishops  mentioned  in  the  New 
Testament  held  definite  offices  or  not,  it  is  now  agreed 
on  all  hands  that  their  functions  are  ministerial,  and 
not  what  we  should  call  episcopal.     They  are  doers  of 


1 66     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

work,  not  overseers.  Their  relation  to  the  presbyters 
is  obscure  ;  but  the  single  fact  that  there  were  several 
of  them  at  Ephesus  and  Philippi  is  enough  to  distin- 
guish them  broadly  from  the  bishop  of  the  next  age. 
It  is  therefore  all  but  universally  admitted  that  there  is 
no  trace  whatever  of  the  bishop  (unless  it  be  James  at 
Jerusalem)  before,  say,  St.  Paul's  arrival  at  Rome  :  and 
it  is  equally  admitted  that  every  city  has  its  one  bishop 
at  the  end  of  the  second  century.  Here  then  is  a  great 
change.     How  is  it  to  be  accounted  for  ? 

The  short  answer  is  that  the  Apostles  must  have  left 
command  that  every  Church  was  to  have  its  bishop. 
There  is  a  good  deal  to  be  said  for  this  theory.  It 
explains  a  whole  series  of  the  facts  before  us,  like  the 
early  spread  of  Episcopacy  in  Asia  and  elsewhere,  and 
the  insistance  of  Ignatius.  It  gives  us  an  additional 
reason  for  the  importance  attached  to  the  lists  or 
succession  of  bishops  by  Hegesippus  and  Irenaeus. 
Above  all,  it  explains  why  later  ages  so  firmly  believed 
in  a  divine  sanction  for  Episcopacy.  So  utterly  have 
they  forgotten  the  earlier  state  of  things  that  they  read 
Episcopacy  without  hesitation  into  the  New  Testament, 
calling  James  Bishop  of  Jerusalem,  Timothy  of 
Ephesus,  and  so  on.  Even  Iren?eus  turns  the  bishops 
or  presbyters  of  Ephesus  (Acts  xx.  17,  28)  into  the 
bishops  and  presbyters  of  Ephesus  and  the  neighbour- 
ing Churches.  Taking  these  facts  together,  they  are 
summarily  decisive  that  Episcopacy  dates  back  to 
Apostolic  times,  and  is  at  any  rate  not  contrary  to  any 
Apostolic  ordinance  that  was  meant  to  be  permanent. 
Whatever  the  Apostles  did,  they  never  gave  command 
that  the  Churches  were  not  to  be  ruled  by  bishops. 

The  theory  is  tempting  :  but  it  is  not  yet  proved. 


ORIGINS   OF   CHURCH   GOVERNMENT     167 

It  explains  some  of  the  facts,  and  would  be  a  poor 
theory  if  it  did  not :  but  we  must  go  further  to  make 
sure  that  it  is  needed  to  explain  them,  and  that  it  is 
consistent  with  other  facts.  Now  if  the  Apostles  really 
commanded  that  every  Church  was  to  have  its  bishop, 
this  must  be  a  historical  fact  capable  of  historical  proof 
from  the  New  Testament  or  later  writings.  We  there- 
fore begin  with  the  New  Testament.  Can  we  trace  in 
it  (under  no  matter  what  names)  a  class  of  permanent 
local  officers,  each  ruling  singly  the  presbyters  of  his 
own  city  ?  These  will  be  bishops  in  our  sense  of  the 
word. 

The  first  instance  commonly  given  is  James  the 
Lord's  brother,  who  was  no  doubt  the  chief  man  at 
Jerusalem  after  the  removal  of  the  other  "  pillars."  His 
strictness  of  life  and  near  relation  to  the  Lord  (a  more 
important  matter  to  Easterns  than  to  us)  mijst  in  any 
case  have  given  him  enormous  influence.  Buv  mfiuence 
is  one  thing,  office  is  another  ;  and  an  influence  suffi- 
ciently accounted  for  as  personal  does  not  compel  us 
to  assume  that  he  held  a  great  office,  though  as  a 
matter  of  fact  he  is  called  an  Apostle,  and  ranked 
with  the  chiefest  of  the  Apostles.  The  story  that  he 
was  Bishop  of  Jerusalem  was  old  in  the  time  of  Euse- 
bius,  for  it  dates  back  to  the  Clementine  romances  ;  but 
there  is  no  sign  that  Eusebius  knew  more  than  we  do 
of  the  matter,  for  we  cannot  take  seriously  the  episcopal 
chair  which  was  shown  as  that  of  James.  Perhaps 
there  is  a  touch  of  truth  in  the  romances,  when  James 
is  given  a  Papal  rather  than  an  Episcopal  position  at 
Jerusalem,  for  even  in  the  New  Testament  he  is  rather 
a  centre  of  all  the  Churches  than  a  local  bishop. 

The  case  of  Timothy  and  Titus  is  a  stronger  one, 


1 68     THE    CHURCH,  PAST   AND    PRESENT 

for  their  work  of  appointing  and  governing  elders  is 
plainly  that  of  a  bishop.  But  this  is  work  which  must 
be  done  in  every  Church  ;  and  if  it  is  done  by  a  single 
man,  he  still  needs  a  permanent  tenure  and  local  con- 
nexion to  make  him  a  bishop.  Now  Timothy  and 
Titus  have  no  permanent  office,  and  Titus  moreover  is 
not  connected  with  any  particular  city.  They  are  not 
bishops,  but  vicars  apostolic,  sent  in  the  apostle's  place 
on  special  missions  at  Ephesus  and  in  Crete.  The 
letters  by  which  we  know  them  are  letters  of  recall 
(2  Tim.  iv.  9,  Tit.  iii.  12),  and  there  is  no  serious  evi- 
dence that  they  ever  saw  Ephesus  and  Crete  again. 

Then  come  the  "  angels  "  of  the  seven  churches  of 
Asia.  It  would  be  rash  to  take  these  for  literal  bishops, 
contrary  to  the  general  symbolic  character  of  the 
Apocalypse  and  to  the  particular  argument  that  "  the 
wor  iv,-7,e^~'^l  "    ^*    Thyatira    cannot    well    be   taken 

litei  r^vioreover,   these   angels    are    identified    with 

their  Churches  for  good  and  evil,  and  made  responsible 
for  them  to  an  extent  which  would  be  quite  unjust  to 
any  literal  bishop.  As  regards  the  "  rulers  "  mentioned 
(Heb.  xiii.  7,  17),  it  is  commonly  agreed  that  the 
Epistle  is  written  to  a  definite  Church  ;  and  if  so,  its 
plural  rulers  cannot  be  a  single  bishop.  There  remains 
the  "  ministry  "  of  Archippus  (Col.  iv.  17),  and  this  gives 
no  reason  for  making  him  Bishop  of  Colossas  or 
Laodicea,  rather  than,  for  instance,  an  evangelist  or 
presbyter.  We  do  not  know  what  it  was,  though  the 
allusion  indicates,  if  anything,  a  subordinate  ofHce. 

These  appear  to  be  the  only  instances  by  which 
serious  persons  have  endeavoured  to  prove  the  exist- 
ence of  the  bishop  from  the  New  Testament,  and  the 
proof  seems  in  each  case  a  failure.     But  if  the  necessity 


ORIGINS   OF   CHURCH   GOVERNMENT     169 

of  Episcopal  government  cannot  be  proved  by  Scripture, 
we  are  bound,  on  the  principles  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, to  deny  that  it  belongs  to  the  essence  of  a  lawful 
Church,  however  legitimate  and  useful  it  may  be.  How- 
ever, there  is  still  the  possibility  that,  though  this  neces- 
sity is  not  declared  in  the  New  Testament,  surviving 
Apostles  may  have  laid  it  down  a  few  years  later.  This 
would  have  been  a  binding  command  for  that  age,  and 
for  our  own  it  would  be,  to  say  the  least,  a  recommen- 
dation of  the  most  weighty  character,  which  a  Church 
will  disregard  at  its  peril. 

There  are  few  cases  (if  any)  where  the  Apostles 
can  be  proved,  otherwise  than  by  Scripture,  to  have 
issued  a  particular  command.  However,  there  is  no 
reason  why  this  should  not  prove  an  exception.  If, 
then.  Apostles  commanded  every  Church  to  have  its 
bishop,  either  we  shall  find  a  bishc^  in  everv^  Q^Birch, 
or  else  (if  fair  occasion  arise)  we  shall  get  a  i>UiflI.  hint 
that  the  disobedient  Churches  are  doing  wrong.  Now 
it  is  as  certain  as  any  historical  fact  can  well  be,  that 
there  was  no  bishop  in  the  important  Church  of  Corinth 
when  Clement  wrote.  The  purport  of  his  letter  is  that 
certain  presbyters  have  been  turned  out  of  office  with- 
out good  cause— the  question  of  all  others  on  which  the 
bishop  must  have  had  an  important  word  to  say.  It  is 
begging  the  question  to  answer  that  the  see  must  have 
been  vacant,  gratuitous  and  impossible  to  distinguish 
the  "  rulers  "  (plural,  by  the  way)  from  the  presbyters, 
or  to  assume  that  Corinth  was  ruled  by  some  wander- 
ing prophet,  or  even  to  suggest  that  an  episcopal 
Church  need  not  have  a  resident  bishop,  as  was  the 
case  with  Virginia  in  1775.  All  these  explanations  are 
shattered  on  one  simple  fact.      From  beginning  to  end 


1 70     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND    PRESENT 

of  a  long  letter,  Clement  never  gives  us  the  faintest  hint 
that  the  presbyters  at  Corinth  either  had,  or  ought  to 
have  had,  over  them  any  human  authority  whatsoever. 
They  are  responsible  to  Christian  opinion,  but  not  to 
any  official  superiors.  Again,  though  we  need  not 
doubt  that  Polycarp  was  bishop  of  Smyrna,  there  seems 
to  have  been  no  bishop  at  Philippi  when  he  wrote.  A 
monarchical  bishop  can  hardly  lie  hid  among  the 
bishops  and  deacons  greeted  by  him.  It  is  just  pos- 
sible that  St.  Paul's  greeting  is  copied  without  regard 
to  facts,  but  I  should  be  sorry  to  think  that  Polycarp 
"  had  far  too  much  respect  for  the  bishop  "  to  send  him 
so  much  as  a  civil  message.  Corinth  and  Philippi  were 
important  Churches,  and  are  therefore  flagrant  cases  of 
disobedience,  if  disobedience  it  was  ;  and  to  them  we 
may  add  the  Churches  contemplated  in  the  so-called 
Teaching  of  the  Apostles.  The  work  is  good  evidence 
for  some  Churches  of  the  sub-apostolic  age,  unless  it  be 
rejected  as  a  romance  of  the  fourth  century — which  at 
present  seems  an  excess  of  scepticism. 

We  now  come  to  Ignatius.  Lightfoot  has  left  little 
room  for  doubt  that  the  seven  Greek  letters  are  genuine, 
and  that  he  wrote  them  on  his  way  to  death  in  Trajan's 
reign.  If  we  date  them  roughly  in  no,  they  will  fall 
about  a  dozen  years  after  the  death  of  St.  John  ;  and  as 
Ignatius  was  then  an  elderly  man,  his  youth  must  be 
well  within  the  Apostolic  Age.  His  conversion  was  prob- 
ably not  in  early  life,  but,  in  any  case,  he  must  have 
known  the  truth  of  the  matter  perfectly  well.  His 
evidence,  if  we  can  get  it,  ought  to  be  decisive  ;  and  so, 
indeed,  it  is.  Episcopacy  has  already  got  a  footing  in 
Syria,  in  Asia,  and  probably  elsewhere.  He  names  the 
bishops  of  Ephesus,  Magnesia,  and  Tralles,  calls   Poly- 


ORIGINS   OF   CHURCH   GOVERNMENT     171 

carp  a  bishop,  and  mentions  a  bishop  at  Philadelphia. 
He  calls  himself  a  bishop  from  Syria,  and  speaks  of 
bishops  near  Antioch,  and  says  that  the  bishops  at  the 
ends  of  the  earth  are  in  the  counsels  of  Jesus  Christ. 
These  are  most  likely  monarchical  bishops,  and  however 
exaggerated  the  phrase  may  be,  it  at  least  seems  to 
prove  that  Ignatius  knew  of  such  bishops  outside  Asia 
and  Syria.  But  this  is  only  a  small  part  of  his  evidence. 
He  has  the  firmest  possible  conviction  that  Episcopacy 
is  according  to  God's  will,  and  this  conviction  he  puts 
in  the  strongest  language.  "  Obey  the  bishop  "  is  his 
recurring  theme.  To  put  a  few  of  his  sentences  to- 
gether :  "  We  ought  to  regard  the  bishop  as  the  Lord 
Himself.  It  is  good  to  know  God  and  the  bishop.  He 
that  honoureth  the  bishop  is  honoured  of  God.  It  is 
not  lawful  to  baptize  or  to  hold  a  love  feast  without  the 
bishop.  The  Spirit  preached,  saying.  Do  nothing  with- 
out the  bishop  "  ;  and  much  more  to  the  same  effect. 

If  a  reasonable  time  be  allowed  for  this  spread  of 
Episcopacy,  its  beginnings  in  Asia  must  fall  within  the 
lifetime  of  St.  John  ;  and  his  opinion  of  it  must  have 
been  well  known.  Indeed  there  is  some  reason  to 
suppose  that  Tertullian  may  be  right  in  tracing  back 
bishops  to  St.  John,  and  that  the  Apostle  may  him- 
self have  constituted  some  bishops,  like  Polybius  and 
Polycarp  at  Tralles  and  Smyrna.  Ignatius  could  not 
have  used  or  found  acceptance  for  his  daring  language 
without  some  sort  of  Apostolic  sanction.  Yet  all  his 
urgency  falls  very  far  short  of  proof  that  an  Apostle 
commanded  every  Church  to  have  its  bishop.  In  the 
first  place,  Ignatius  is  attacking  separatists,  not  presby- 
terians  ;  individuals  who  disobeyed  an  existing  order,  not 
Churches  which   deliberately  preferred   another   order. 


172     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

With  all  his  earnestness,  he  says  nothing  of  Episcopacy 
different  in  kind  from  what  the  Apostles  say  of  the 
Empire,  "  Honour  the  emperor :  the  powers  that  be 
are  ordained  of  God."  Yet  few  of  us  will  hold  that 
republican  countries  are  living  in  sin.  As  the  Apostles 
commanded  obedience  to  the  emperor  as  the  dc  facto 
ruler  of  the  world,  so  Ignatius  with  still  more  emphasis 
preaches  obedience  to  the  bishop  as  the  de  facto  ruler 
of  the  Church  to  which  he  writes.  But  this  is  not  all. 
He  says,  Obey  the  bishop,  and  that  with  all  the  urgency 
he  can.  His  earnestness  in  the  matter  has  not  been 
exaggerated.  All  the  more  significant  is  the  absence 
of  the  one  decisive  argument  which  would  have  made 
everything  else  superfluous.  He  never  says.  Obey  the 
bishop  as  the  Lord  ordained,  or  as  the  Apostles  gave 
command.^  Must  not  this  be  the  first  argument  in  the 
mind  of  every  one  who  believes  it  to  be  true  ?  Could 
such  a  one,  especially  a  man  like  Ignatius,  have  sup- 
pressed it  all  through  six  letters  full  of  urgent  exhorta- 
tions on  the  matter  ?  The  silence  of  so  earnest  an 
advocate  seems  a  plain  confession  that  he  knew  of  no 
such  command  :  and  the  ignorance  of  one  who  must 
have  known  the  truth  of  the  matter  seems  decisive  that 
no  such  command  was  given. 

^  The  only  passage  which  needs  discussion  is  Trail  7  dxiipicToi  [0«oO] 
'ItjctoO  XpiCTOv  Kai  roD  einaK6irov  Kcd  tup  SiarayfidTwi'  rdv  ol-k oarb'Kwv,  where 
Lightfoot  says,  "the  reference  is  doubtless  to  the  institution  of  Episcopacy." 
Very  well ;  but  in  what  sense  precisely  ?  It  does  not  assert  that  the  Apostles 
instituted  Episcopacy  as  a  binding  ordinance  on  all  Churches,  For  (i)  if 
Ignatius  alluded  at  all  to  so  decisive  a  fact,  he  cannot  have  failed  to  mention  it 
freijuently,  (2)  The  StardY^aTa  (plural,  be  it  noted)  need  not  be  taken  more 
narrowly  than  the  7rapa56<reis  of  2  Thess.  ii.  15  and  I  Cor.  xi.  2  :  and  New 
Testament  usage  will  not  allow  us  to  say  that  the  compound  word  necessarily 
implies  a  general  command.  (3)  If  Apostles  appointed  Polybius  bishop  of 
Tralles,  as  they  very  likely  did,  the  fact  would  be  alluded  to  in  tov  eiri<TK6irov, 
and  the  5iaTdy)xaTa  would  be  injunctions  to  obey  him.  Sec,  rather  than  general 
commands  that  other  Churches  should  have  bishops. 


ORIGINS   OF   CHURCH   GOVERNMENT     173 

We  have  seen  in  a  former  chapter  that  the  Apostohc 
Age  was  not  without  hints  which  may  have  helped  the 
transition  to  Episcopacy.  If  James  was  not  actually 
Bishop  of  Jerusalem,  the  example  of  a  Church  prac- 
tically guided  by  a  single  man  was  conspicuous,  and 
may  have  been  suggestive.  Occasionally  some  old  dis- 
ciple, one  perhaps  who  had  seen  the  Lord,  would  settle 
down  in  the  midst  of  a  younger  generation,  and  might 
wield  an  enormous  influence.  Again,  Timothy  holds 
for  the  moment  the  powers  of  a  Bishop  of  Ephesus  ; 
and  he  is  not  likely  to  have  been  the  only  special 
commissioner  of  the  sort.  If  some  of  the  others 
were  left  stranded  by  the  Apostle's  death,  they  might 
decide  to  remain  indefinitely  at  their  posts  ;  and  in  this 
case  they  would  be  (monarchical)  bishops  at  once.  As 
the  Apostle  had  entrusted  Churches  to  them,  another 
generation  would  say  with  practical  truth,  though  not 
with  precise  accuracy,  that  Apostles  had  made  them 
bishops  of  their  Churches.  Even  this  is  more  than 
we  need  to  account  for  the  origin  of  such  a  tradition. 
Imagine  that  St.  John  made  Polycarp  only  one  of 
the  (plural)  bishops  at  Smyrna,  and  that  he  did  not 
become  the  (monarchical)  Bishop  of  Smyrna  till  after 
the  Apostle's  death.  It  would  be  a  very  pardonable 
confusion  of  dates  if  the  next  writer  told  us  roundly 
that  St.  John  made  him  Bishop  of  Smyrna.  This  would 
be  verbally  true,  though  not  strictly  accurate.  I  give 
this  merely  as  an  illustration  of  what  might  happen  in 
other  cases,  for  when  Irenaeus  tells  us  that  his  own 
teacher  was  made  Bishop  of  Smyrna  by  Apostles,  he  is 
not  likely  to  be  mistaken. 

We  need  not  assume  any  Apostolic  command  to 
explain  the  rapid  spread    of  Episcopacy.     Given    that 


174     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

there  was  no  Apostolic  command  the  other  way,  the 
fact  is  as  easily  accounted  for  as  the  spread  of  despotism 
over  Europe  at  the  end  of  the  Middle  Ages.  The 
Churches  must  have  felt  a  heavy  strain  as  the  last  of  the 
Apostles  were  passing  away.  The  Neronian  persecu- 
tion, the  fall  of  Jerusalem,  and  the  rise  of  heresies  had 
seemed  to  usher  in  the  last  days,  yet  the  Lord  delayed 
His  coming.  Meanwhile  strong  measures  were  urgently 
needed  to  brace  up  the  loose  government  which  re- 
mained when  the  two  great  Apostles  had  been  cut  off. 
Corinth  was  one  conspicuous  object-lesson  of  disorder, 
and  most  likely  there  were  plenty  more  ;  and  even  if 
Clement's  Christian  tact  availed  for  the  moment,  the 
Church  could  not  long  escape  the  task  of  working  out 
its  own  enduring  peace.  But  when  the  forces  of  anarchy 
rise  high  men  always  turn  to  monarchy  for  help,  and 
the  bishop  was  visibly  the  strongest  centre  of  unity  the 
Churches  could  have,  at  a  time  when  they  needed  all 
the  strength  they  could  get.  A  Papacy,  for  instance, 
would  have  been  very  much  weaker.  It  may  well  be 
that  the  last  word  of  St.  John  from  Ephesus  was  pre- 
cisely that  encouragement  which  alone  was  needed  to 
make  the  drift  to  Episcopacy  irresistible. 

The  change  was  easy,  for  the  bishop  was  no  suc- 
cessor of  the  Apostle.  The  two  offices  are  utterly  diffe- 
rent. The  Apostle  is  a  witness  to  the  world,  who 
preaches  from  city  to  city,  founding  and  confirming 
Churches,  but  never  treating  any  particular  city  as  more 
than  a  convenient  centre  for  the  work  in  hand.  The 
bishop  is  the  resident  head  of  a  local  Church,  whose 
proper  business  is  just  the  administration  with  which 
the  Apostle  meddles  but  seldom  and  unwillingly.  In 
the   main,  the   one  office   is  preaching  the  Word,  the 


ORIGINS   OF   CHURCH   GOVERNMENT     175 

other  serving  tables.  Things  are  fairly  clear  if  the  one 
monarchical  bishop  was  developed  from  the  plural 
bishops  of  the  Apostolic  Age.  In  this  case  the  name 
would  remain,  and  few  who  are  not  students  of  history 
know  how  easily  even  great  changes  are  overlooked,  if 
only  names  are  kept  unchanged.  Indeed,  the  great 
difficulty  in  studying  history  is  that  meanings  change  so 
much  faster  than  words.  If  so,  there  is  nothing  sur- 
prising in  the  naive  way  in  which  most  of  the  early 
teachers  are  called  bishops  by  writers  of  the  third  or 
fourth  century,  who  may  sometimes  have  known  rather 
less  of  the  facts  than  we  do. 

The  right  conclusion  would  seem  to  be  that  Episco- 
pacy is  like  monarchy,  an  ancient  and  godly  form  of 
government,  which  we  may  be  well  content  to  live 
under  and  loyally  to  serve.  Divine  sanction  it  has,  and 
of  the  clearest,  but  we  have  found  no  trace  of  any  such 
exclusive  divine  authority  as  would  make  other  forms  of 
government  sinful.  It  is  often,  indeed,  maintained  that 
when  a  custom  has  once  obtained  prevalence  in  the 
Churches,  it  becomes  as  binding  on  all  future  ages  as  if 
the  Lord  Himself  had  so  declared  it.  But  as  such  pre- 
valence may  fairly  be  claimed  for  some  customs  plainly 
repugnant  to  God's  written  Word,  like  the  worship  of 
images  in  the  fifteenth  century,  such  prevalence  is  of  itself 
no  proof  whatever  of  divine  authority.  The  Lord  called 
Himself  Truth,  not  Custom,  as  the  arch-reformer  Gre- 
gory VII.  reminds  us.  Truly  the  voice  of  God  is  in 
the  silent  adoration  of  the  ages  bending  low  before  the 
cross  of  Love.  Through  all  the  sins  and  ignorances  of 
men  the  Spirit  of  God  is  working  hitherto.  Christ  pro- 
mised to  be  with  us  all  the  days,  and  that  promise  He 
will  most  surely  keep  and  perform ;  but  He  never  pro- 


176     THE    CHURCH,  PAST   AND    PRESENT 

mised  to  tie  God's  truth  to  any  decisions  of  sinners, 
however  unanimous  they  may  be.  Circumstances  may 
change  our  duty  with  regard  to  any  custom  that  is  not 
ordained  of  God,  and  of  circumstances  every  Church 
must  necessarily  judge  for  itself  in  each  generation.  If 
the  Scots,  for  example,  have  done  rashly  in  abolishing 
bishops,  then  so  much  the  worse  for  them ;  but  we  can- 
not say  that  they  have  disobeyed  Christ.  Granted  that 
our  own  clergy  are  as  truly  called  of  God  as  if  St.  Paul's 
own  hands  were  laid  on  them,  what  more  can  we  want  ? 
Whitgift  and  Hooker  took  a  strong  position  when  they 
limited  themselves  to  the  proof  that  Episcopacy  is  a 
lawful  and  ancient  institution  ;  the  Caroline  divines  only 
weakened  it  by  attempting  to  turn  the  tables  on  Puri- 
tans who  insisted  that  a  Church  governed  by  bishops  is 
no  Church  at  all. 

But  if  we  deny  that  Episcopacy  has  any  exclusive 
divine  authority,  some  of  the  weaker  brethren  will  ask 
whether  we  are  not  giving  up  all  certainty  in  religion. 
Not  at  all.  Christ  is  none  the  less  our  Saviour,  and 
His  Holy  Spirit  none  the  less  our  guide,  if  we  use  His 
gift  of  reason  on  a  command  He  never  gave.  It  is  bad 
logic,  not  to  say  unbelief,  which  refuses  to  be  sure  of 
our  own  place  inside  Christ's  Church  if  we  cannot  lock 
our  neighbour  out  of  it.  But  some  consequences  do 
follow  our  denial.  If  bishops  are  not  essential  to  the 
being  of  a  lawful  Church,  neither  is  any  particular  mode 
of  appointing  or  consecrating  them,  provided  all  things 
are  done  decently  and  in  order.  If  even  the  outlines  of 
Church  government  are  not  positive  laws  of  God,  much 
less  are  the  details  of  public  worship.  There  is  a  strong 
presumption  (though  not  the  argument  they  took  it  for) 
in  the  scoff  of  the   Puritans,  that  the  Holy  Ghost  had 


ORIGINS   OF   CHURCH   GOVERNMENT     177 

remembered  the  basons,  and  forgotten  the  archbishops. 
The  particular  ceremonial  of  the  Lord's  Supper,  for 
instance,  is  not  more  likely  to  have  been  directly  or- 
dained of  Christ  than  an  order  of  bishops  ;  and  there 
is  no  historical  evidence  that  it  was.  Christ's  Church 
is  no  fortress  of  Zion  with  guarded  gates  and  battle- 
mented  walls,  for  Jerusalem  shall  be  inhabited  as  towns 
without  walls,  and  the  Lord  Himself  shall  be  a  wall  of 
fire  around  her.  It  is  a  flock,  not  a  fold  ;  and  its  unity 
is  not  in  a  Catholic  uniformity  of  doctrine,  discipline, 
and  ritual,  but  in  the  living  faith  which  alone  has  power 
to  touch  the  ever-living  Shepherd.  This  the  Church 
of  England  has  not  forgotten.  "  In  these  our  doings 
we  condemn  no  other  nations,  nor  prescribe  anything 
but  for  our  own  people  only.  For  we  think  it  con- 
venient that  every  country  should  use  such  ceremonies 
as  they  shall  think  best  to  the  setting  forth  of  God's 
honour  and  glory,  and  to  the  reducing  of  the  people  to 
a  most  perfect  and  godly  living,  without  error  or  super- 
stition ;  and  that  they  should  put  away  other  things, 
which  from  time  to  time  they  perceive  to  be  most 
abused,  as  in  men's  ordinances  it  often  chanceth  di- 
versely in  divers  countries."  So  says  the  National 
Church  of  England,  and  so  the  National  Churches 
which  make  up  Eastern  Christendom  must  say  too. 
Rome  is  the  dissenter. 

We  do  not  believe  as  we  are  taunted,  that  God 
remembers  the  ends  and  forgets  the  means,  or  that 
the  things  He  leaves  to  men's  discretion  are  uncared  for 
by  Him.  We  are  not  the  men  who  cut  God's  world  in 
sunder  with  a  sharp  distinction  of  sacred  and  profane. 
It  is  all  holy.  Christ  ordained  but  two  sacraments  ; 
yet   the   men   who  invented   others   were    not   entirely 

M 


178     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

wrong,  if  the  thought  of  their  heart  was  a  dim  idea  that 
every  experience  of  hfe  has  a  sacramental  virtue  of  its 
own,  if  only  we  have  faith  to  make  it  ours.  All  things 
end  in  mystery,  as  the  schoolmen  said  ;  and  on  the 
deepest  mystery  of  all,  the  guidance  of  our  life  by  the 
Spirit  of  Truth,  we  can  safely  rest  in  reverent  and 
loving  thankfulness. 


CHAPTER   X 

HISTORY   OF   THE   LORD'S   SUPPER 

By   thk    Rev.    Canon    MEYRICK,    M.A 

On  the  day  before  He  suffered,  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
sent  two  of  His  disciples,  Peter  and  John,  from  Bethany 
to  Jerusalem,  to  make  the  necessary  preparations  for 
the  Paschal  feast.  The  preparations  consisted  in  the 
purchase  of  a  lamb,  some  bitter  herbs  of  the  nature  of 
endive,  a  mixture  of  vinegar,  dates  and  other  dried 
fruits,  forming  a  sop,  some  unleavened  bread,  and 
sufficient  wine  to  fill  four  cups  or  bowls  when  mixed 
with  water.  The  bread,  the  wine,  the  sop,  and  the 
bitter  herbs  they  probably  sent  immediately  to  the 
guest-chamber  designated  to  them  by  the  Lord  ;  the 
lamb  they  led  to  the  temple  and  killed  it  before  the 
altar  in  the  court,  some  of  its  blood  being  caught  by 
a  priest  and  solemnly  thrown  at  the  base  of  the  altar. 
Then  having  taken  out  and  burnt  on  the  altar  the 
inward  fat,  they  dressed  the  lamb  to  be  ready  for 
cooking,  and  transfixing  it  with  a  pomegranate  spit, 
carried  it  to  their  lodging  and  roasted  it  in  an  oven. 

At  a  later  period  in  the  day  the  Master,  with  the 
remaining  ten  Apostles,  entered  Jerusalem  and  took  His 
way  to  the  house  where  He  was  to  eat  the  Passover. 
When  the  hour  for  the  banquet  on  the  sacrificed  lamb 
arrived,  He  and  His  twelve  companions  disposed  them- 
selves   round   the   board   in    a   reclining  position.      He 


i8o     THE   CHURCH,  PAST    AND   PRESENT 

then  took  one  of  the  cups,  known  ;is  the  first  cup,  in 
His  hands,  and  having  given  thanks  over  it,  gave  it  to 
His  disciples,  saying,  "Take  this  and  divide  it  among 
yourselves"  (Luke  xxii.  17).  This  vi-as  the  cup  of  the 
Old  Testament,  as  distinct  from  one  that  was  to  follow. 
When  they  had  drunk  of  it,  they  dipped  their  hands  in 
water,  and  to  add  the  lesson  of  humility  to  that  of 
purity,  the  Lord  also  washed  His  disciples'  feet.  Next, 
each  took  in  turn  with  their  fingers  from  the  dish  a 
mouthful  of  the  bitter  herbs  (which  reminded  them  of 
the  oppression  suffered  by  their  fathers  in  Egypt),  and 
the  second  cup  was  filled.  Then,  after  an  exposition  of 
the  historical  bearing  of  the  sacrificed  lamb,  the  bitter 
herbs,  and  the  unleavened  bread,  Psalms  cxiii.  and  cxiv. 
were  sung,  the  second  cup  was  drunk,  and  the  lamb 
was  eaten.  The  feast  was  now  drawing  towards  its 
close  when  the  Master,  taking  a  piece  of  the  bread  in 
His  hands,  blessed,  brake,  and  gave  it  to  the  disciples  ; 
and  just  as  He  had  probably  said  a  little  before  over 
the  dish  containing  the  lamb,  ''  This  is  the  body  of  the 
lamb  that  was  sacrificed  by  our  fathers  in  Egypt,"  so 
now  He  said  of  the  bread,  "  This  is  My  Body,  that  is 
being  given  for  you."  As  the  solemn  eating  of  the 
lamb  had  hitherto  commemorated  the  Israelites' 
deliverance  in  Egypt,  effected  by  the  sacrifice  of  the 
Paschal  Lamb,  so  henceforth  the  solemn  eating  of  the 
bread  was  to  commemorate  the  greater  deliverance 
effected  by  the  sacrifice  of  Himself,  the  antitype  of  the 
Lamb.  Next  came  the  drinking  of  the  third  cup,  which 
in  like  manner  the  Lord  transformed  and  elevated  into 
being  a  commemoration  of  His  blood-shedding  on  the 
cross.  The  final  address  to  the  disciples  and  the  inter- 
cessory prayer  (John  xiv.-xvii.)  followed  ;  the  fourth  cup 


HISTORY   OF   THE   LORD'S   SUPPER     i8i 

was  drunk  ;  Psalms  cxv.-cxviii.  were  sung ;  and  the 
Paschal  supper  was  over,  while  from  the  dead  wood  of 
the  old  form,  whose  meaning  was  now  exhausted,  there 
had  blossomed  forth  a  new  institution  which  was  to  last 
until  He  came  again. 

Twice  the  Master  had  commanded  His  disciples  to 
"  do  this,"  that  is,  to  eat  the  bread  and  drink  the  cup, 
in  memory  of  Him,  when  He  should  have  passed  away 
from  the  earth.  Primitive  Christian  piety  was  not  con- 
tent to  confine  the  injunction  to  one  part  of  the  feast 
that  was  being  celebrated.  The  Apostles  and  their 
disciples  felt  themselves  bound  to  re-enact  the  whole  of 
the  feast,  and  they  kept  it  on  the  evening  of  every 
Lord's  Day,  with  such  changes  as  circumstances  had 
made  necessary.  Those  changes  were  considerable. 
The  Paschal  Lamb  could  no  longer  be  eaten,  for  it  was 
a  type  now  fulfilled  by  the  antitype  ;  the  bitter  herbs 
could  not  belong  to  a  feast  which,  since  the  resurrection 
of  the  Lord  and  His  ascension,  had  become  a  com- 
memoration of  joy  and  gladness ;  bread  could  no 
longer  be  used  unleavened,  for  that  was  peculiar  to  the 
Paschal  week,  and  represented  an  event  no  longer  to 
be  commemorated.  Instead  of  these  things,  ordinary 
food  was  provided  by  those  who  were  capable  of 
offering  it,  and  shared  by  all  alike  ;  while  towards 
the  end  of  the  meal,  in  the  same  place  that  it  had 
occupied  in  the  Lord's  Last  Supper,  a  loaf  and  a  cup 
of  mixed  wine,  selected  from  the  offerings,  was  placed 
before  the  president,  was  solemnly  set  apart  by  prayer 
as  the  Body  and  Blood  of  the  Lord,  and  was  distri- 
buted to  all  present,  who,  no  doubt,  stood  for  the 
ceremony.  Then  followed  exhortation,  prayer,  and 
singing  of  Psalms  after  the  model  of  the  original  feast. 


1 82     THE   CHURCH,  PAST    AND    PRESENT 

Two  hundred  years  later,  Tertullian  says,  that  when  the 
eating  was  over,  they  somethnes  chanted  the  Psalms  of 
David,  sometimes  sang  original  hymns,  and  that  prayer 
concluded  the  feast.  "  We  go  away,"  he  adds,  "  as 
men  who  have  not  so  much  supped  as  been  to  a  school 
of  philosophy  "  (Apol.  xxxix.). 

Such  an  institution  as  this,  a  joyous  commemora- 
tion of  the  Master  spiritually  and  invisibly  present  to 
their  affections,  was  altogether  in  accordance  with  the 
character  of  Christ's  religion,  who  described  Himself  as 
coming  not  as  an  ascetic  like  John  the  Baptist,  but  (in 
contrast  with  him)  eating  and  drinking  ;  and  it  accorded 
with  the  practice  of  the  Apostles,  who  not  only  on  the 
particular  occasions  of  the  public  meal,  but  every  day 
in  their  own  homes,  "  ate  their  meat  with  gladness  and 
singleness  of  heart,  praising  God  "  (Acts  ii.  46). 

So  much  was  the  Lord's  Supper,  both  in  its  social 
and  devotional  aspect,  a  part  of  the  early  Church 
system,  that  St.  Paul  instituted  it  as  a  matter  of  course 
in  the  Churches  which  he  founded,  and  when  it  was 
abused  did  not  therefore  countermand  it,  but  ordered 
the  correction  of  the  abuses. 

To  us  it  might  seem  the  most  natural  thing  possible 
that  St.  Paul  should  have  prevented  the  recurrence  of 
the  profanities  of  which  the  Corinthian  converts  had 
been  guilty  (in  not  discerning  or  distinguishing  the  Me- 
morial food  from  the  other  elements  of  the  meal),  by 
enjoining  a  separation  of  the  sacred  and  the  common 
parts  of  the  feast.  But  this,  we  see,  he  did  not  do,  and 
it  probably  would  have  shocked  the  Apostles  who  had 
been  present  at  the  Last  Supper,  and  all  the  Christians 
of  the  first  century,  to  have  proposed  to  do  so.  It  was 
not  any  theological  reason,  nor  any  sense  of  the  practical 


HISTORY   OF   THE    LORD'S   SUPPER     183 

evils  indicated  by  St.  Paul  (and  seemingly  almost 
inseparable  from  the  ordinance  when  enthusiasm  had 
died),  that  at  length  caused  the  transference  of  the 
Eucharist  to  the  forenoon  from  the  evening,  and  the 
consequent  separation  of  the  sacred  and  the  social 
feast.  It  was  the  stern  pressure  of  Imperial  Roman 
Law. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  second  century  the  Emperor 
Trajan  entertained  a  rooted  apprehension  and  dislike 
of  all  societies  and  clubs,  and  absolutely  forbade  their 
holding  their  meetings  in  the  evening,  when  he  believed 
that  conspiracies  would  be  hatched  by  them  against  the 
State.  The  various  prefects,  therefore,  issued  prohibi- 
tory edicts  against  evening  meetings  in  the  years  no 
and  III.  The  prohibitions  imposed  by  these  edicts 
covered  the  case  of  the  Lord's  Supper,  understanding 
by  that  name  the  feast  consisting  both  of  the  Agape,  or 
love  feast,  as  it  was  called,  and  of  the  Eucharist  proper, 
the  two  not  being  yet  separated  (Ignatius  Ep.  ad  Smyrn. 
viii.,  Ed.  Lightfoot).  What  was  the  Church  to  do  ?  She 
transferred  the  Lord's  Supper  to  the  forenoon,  making 
at  the  same  time  a  change  in  the  order  of  proceeding. 
Whereas  hitherto  the  memorial  part  had  been  nearly 
at  the  end  of  the  feast  in  accordance  with  the  order  of 
the  Last  Supper,  it  was  now  made  to  precede  the  meal, 
which  thus  came  at  a  time  more  suitable  for  refresh- 
ment than  the  earlier  morning  would  have  been.  It 
was  probably  the  practice  of  the  second  century,  not 
of  the  first,  which  St.  Chrysostom  describes  as  follows  : 
"  After  the  sermon,  and  prayers,  and  the  communion, 
when  the  congregation  broke  up,  all  the  faithful  did 
not  return  immediately  to  their  homes  ;  but  the  rich 
and  well-to-do,  bringing  food  and  eatables  from  their 


1 84     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND    PRESENT 

own  homes,  invited  the  poor,  and  made  a  common  table, 
a  common  meal,  a  common  party  in  the  Church  itself  ; 
and  thus,  from  eating  together,  and  from  reverential 
regard  for  the  place,  they  were  all  closely  united  in 
Christian  love  "  {Horn,  in  Did.  Pauli,  Oportet  esse  hoereses). 

This  order  did  not  last  long.  Before  the  end  of 
the  century,  probably  in  the  reign  of  Commodus,  when 
the  severe  vigilance  of  the  Emperors  was  relaxed,  the 
Agape  or  social  meeting  was  re-transferred  to  the  even- 
ing, whilst  the  Holy  Communion  proper  remained  as 
part  of  the  forenoon  service,  or  occasionally  even  of 
the  ante-lucan  service  (Tertull.  De  Corona,  iii.).  The 
likeness  to  the  original  Lord's  Supper  was  diminished 
by  the  change  effected  at  the  beginning  of  the  second 
century,  and  still  more  by  this  further  change  towards 
the  end  of  the  same  century,  when  indeed  to  outward 
appearance  it  was  almost  destroyed.  The  Communion 
was  now  preceded  by  the  "  Missa  Catechumenorum," 
consisting  of  psalms,  hymns,  lessons  from  the  Old  and 
New  Testaments,  sermon,  prayers  for  the  catechumens, 
for  the  possessed,  and  for  penitents  ;  then  came  the 
Communion  service  proper,  or  "  Missa  fidelium  "  (so- 
called  from  all  but  the  faithful  who  were  about  to 
become  communicants  having  been  now  dismissed), 
which  was  composed  of  a  litany,  an  offertory,  the 
consecration  prayer  and  the  reception  in  both  kinds, 
followed  by  further  prayers,  hymns,  and  thanksgivings, 
and  concluded  by  the  bishop's  blessing. 

Up  to  this  period  the  Eucharistic  thanksgiving 
ofTered  by  the  officiating  minister  had  scarcely  taken 
a  fixed  form,  but  whether  extempore  or  not,  it  con- 
sisted of  a  giving  of  thanks  for  two  things,  first,  for  the 
supply  of  the  necessary  wants  of  man,  secondly,  for  the 


HISTORY   OF   THE   LORD'S   SUPPER     185 

benefits  received  through  the  death  and  passion  of 
Christ,  solemnly  commemorated  in  the  Bread  and  Wine, 
which  at  once  represented  the  Creator's  gifts  to  His 
creatures,  and  were  the  tokens  of  the  Body  and  Blood 
of  Christ.  When  the  Holy  Communion  and  the  Agape 
were  finally  separated,  the  thanksgiving  for  temporal 
food  was  confined  to  the  Agape,  and  the  character  of 
a  mystical  commemoration  of  the  sacrifice  of  the  death 
of  Christ  was  more  notably  stamped  on  the  offering  of 
the  Bread  and  Wine,  now  standing  apart  from  its  pre- 
vious environment.  In  the  "teaching  of  the  Apostles," 
A.D.  100,  in  Justin  Martyr,  A.D.  150,  in  Irenaeus,  a.d. 
180,  we  find  a  joyous  recognition  of  the  sovereignty  of 
God  and  His  goodness  in  giving  sustenance  to  man, 
together  ivith  an  offering  of  praise  and  thanksgiving  for 
the  redemption  wrought  by  Christ.  Now  the  idea  of 
temporal  sustenance  drops  away,  and  from  the  time  of 
Cyprian,  A.D.  250,  the  more  solemn  character  of  the  rite, 
as  commemorating  the  sacrifice  of  the  Lord,  is  dwelt  on 
with  great  and  greater  emphasis  and  exclusiveness. 

Then  in  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries  came  an  event 
which  had  an  untold  influence  on  the  doctrine  and  on 
the  constitution  of  the  Church.  This  was  the  breaking- 
up  of  the  Roman  Empire  and  the  irruption  of  the 
barbarians.  The  Roman  troops  drew  back,  and  left 
territories  which  they  had  occupied  in  the  possession  of 
the  Northern  invaders  ;  the  Church  did  not  equally 
recoil.  To  its  infinite  credit,  it  exerted  every  nerve  to 
gather  within  its  fold  the  heathen  conquerors.  The 
strain  was  enormous,  and  the  Church  had  to  condone  a 
vast  amount  of  ignorance  and  superstition,  which  it 
hoped  afterwards  to  remove  and  correct,  satisfied  for 
the  time  if  only  it  could  gather  the  new  nations  within 


1 86     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND    PRESENT 

the  net.  The  barbarians  found  that  the  Church  to 
which  they  had  submitted  celebrated,  with  great  pomp, 
a  pomp  once  unknown,  a  service,  not  now  making  part 
of  a  social  meal  in  which  the  Last  Supper  of  the  Founder 
had  been  commemorated  and  re-enacted,  but  standing 
by  itself  and  apart  from  its  old  surroundings,  in  which 
the  priest  appeared  to  declare  that  the  bread  which  he 
held  in  his  hand,  and  the  wine  which  he  poured  forth, 
were  the  Body  and  Blood  of  the  Lord.  The  new  con- 
verts were  for  the  most  part  simple,  rude  soldiers  of  the 
peasant  class,  not  acquainted  with  Hebrew  parable  and 
poetry,  but  familiar  with  the  magical  rites  of  their  own 
superstitions.  They  accepted  the  words  that  they  heard 
in  their  baldest  signification.  Their  teachers  knew  that 
they  were  materialising  the  traditional  faith  in  respect 
to  the  Sacrament,  but  they  had  to  leave  the  rude  con- 
ception uncorrected  for  the  present,  considering  that  the 
immediate  work  to  be  done  was  to  secure  a  profession 
of  Christianity,  and  that  if  they  did  that,  all  would  come 
right  in  the  end. 

Thus,  the  materialistic  view  of  the  bread  and  wine 
becoming  the  Body  and  Blood  of  Christ  took  its  place 
in  the  Church,  and  when  once  it  was  rooted  in  the 
apprehensions  of  the  vulgar,  the  more  enlightened 
members  of  the  body  were  not  able,  as  they  had  ex- 
pected, to  eradicate  it.  It  continued,  however,  to  be  only 
the  view  of  the  uneducated  populace,  and  it  was  not 
till  the  ninth  century  that  any  one  was  found  to  put  it 
into  words  and  advocate  it  in  a  serious  treatise.  This 
was  done  by  Paschasius  Radbert,  a  monk  of  Corbey, 
probably  himself  sprung  from  the  people.  His  doctrine 
was  at  once  controverted  by  men  more  learned  than 
himself,  who  had   been  trained   in  the  traditional  doc- 


HISTORY    OF   THE   LORD'S   SUPPER     187 

trine  of  the  Church,  Amalarius,  Archdeacon  of  Treves, 
Rabanus  Maiirus,  Archbishop  of  Mentz,  John  Scotus 
Erigena,  Walafrid  Strabo,  and  Bertram,  or  Ratramnus. 
But  argument  could  not  overthrow  a  now  widespread, 
if  ignorant,  belief,  which  based  itself  when  assailed  upon 
the  apparent  meaning  of  the  words  of  Scripture.  The 
materialistic  conception  still  grew,  and  invaded  the 
higher  ecclesiastical  ranks,  so  that  two  centuries  later, 
when  Berengarius  restated  the  primitive  doctrine,  that 
the  bread  and  wine  were  not  Christ,  but  were  the 
means  of  conveying  the  benefits  of  His  death  and  pas- 
sion to  the  soul  if  received  with  faith  and  love,  he  was 
regarded  as  an  innovator,  and  brought  before  Synods 
and  Popes  for  heresy.  One  of  the  Popes  was  Hilde- 
brand  (Gregory  VII.).  Hildebrand  hesitated  ;  "he  was 
not  sure  himself,"  but  he,  too,  had  to  yield  to  the  pres- 
sure from  below,  and  by  his  command  Berengarius 
made  confession  that  "  the  bread  and  the  wine  placed 
upon  the  altar  are,  by  the  mystery  of  holy  prayer  and 
the  words  of  our  Redeemer,  converted  into  the  true, 
actual,  and  life-giving  Flesh  and  Blood  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  and  are  after  consecration  the  true  Body 
of  Christ,  which  was  born  of  the  Virgin,  and  which 
hung  on  the  Cross  an  offering  for  the  salvation  of  the 
world,  not  only  in  the  way  of  sign  and  in  virtue  of  a 
sacrament,  but  also  in  propriety  of  nature  and  truth  of 
substance." 

Two  things  still  remained,  one  to  give  a  name  and 
authority  to  the  new  doctrine  that  had  won  its  way  to 
the  mastery  of  the  Western  Church,  the  other  to  con- 
struct an  intellectual  support  for  it.  The  Lateran 
Council,  A.D.  12  15,  supplied  the  first  need,  the  Realistic 
Schoolmen  the  second.     Intelligent  thinkers  could  not 


1 88     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND    PRESENT 

hold  the  common  people's  belief  of  a  physical  change. 
The  question  must  be  taken  out  of  the  sphere  of  physics 
and  transferred  to  that  of  metaphysics.  The  theory  of 
Realism  seemed  to  be  the  Dens  ex  tnachwa  to  effect 
this. 

When  we  look  at  a  number  of  tables  of  different 
sizes  and  shapes,  by  disregarding  their  differences  we 
get  a  general  idea  of  a  table  ;  when  we  look  at  a  number 
of  men  and  women,  differing  in  colour,  height,  and 
looks,  by  disregarding  these  differences  we  get  the 
general  idea  of  man.  These  general  ideas  are  creations 
of  our  minds.  They  have  no  objective  existence  in 
themselves  outside  our  minds,  but  the  Realists  did  not 
understand  that  their  existence  was  only  subjective. 
They  held  that  they  had  a  real  substantial  existence  of 
their  own  ;  and  more,  that  every  table  that  we  see, 
comes  to  be  a  table  only  by  partaking  of  the  table- 
substance  ;  and  that  every  man  comes  to  be  a  man  only 
by  partaking  of  the  man-substance.  The  Schola  theolo- 
gonim,  whose  business  it  was  to  find  arguments  for  the 
new  doctrine,  grasped  eagerly  at  the  realistic  theory. 
Here,  they  said,  are  indicated  the  relations  of  the  bread 
and  of  the  Body  of  Christ.  By  consecration  we  do 
not  take  away  the  properties  or  appearances  of  bread, 
but  the  bread-substance  lying  beneath  them,  which 
makes  the  bread  to  be  bread  ;  and  we  substitute  for 
that  bread-substance  the  flesh-substance,  which  makes 
the  Body  of  Christ  to  be  a  body.  With  this  theory 
they  were  content.  They  did  not  apprehend,  or  they 
kept  it  in  the  background,  that  on  the  very  principles 
of  the  philosophy  in  which  they  took  refuge,  the  cessa- 
tion of  the  bread-substance  must  make  the  properties 
and  appearances  of  bread   to  cease  also  ;  and  that  the 


HISTORY   OF   THE   LORD'S  SUPPER     189 

substituted  body-substance  could  not  either  lose  the 
properties  and  appearance  of  a  body,  or  invest  itself  with 
those  of  bread.  But  it  was  hardly  worth  while  for 
opponents  thus  to  point  out  the  invalidity  of  the  hypo- 
thesis, for  very  soon  the  whole  theory  of  Realism  was 
overthrown  by  Conceptualists  and  Nominalists,  and  it 
was  proved  and  acknowledged  that  there  was  no  such 
thing  at  all  as  a  supposed  metaphysical  substance 
separable  from  its  phenomena.  With  Realism  the  only 
argumentative  prop  for  transubstantiation  fell,  and  no 
other  has  ever  been  erected.  Henceforth  its  supporters 
justified  it,  not  by  argument  but  by  the  authority  of  the 
Roman  See.  "  The  chief  thing  is  to  hold  about  it  what 
the  holy  Roman  Church  holds,"  said  Duns  Scotus.  "  I 
prove  that  the  bread  is  changed  into  the  Body  of  Christ, 
because  we  must  hold  what  the  Roman  Pontiff  says 
must  be  held  "  (Joan.  Bacon).  In  other  words,  accept- 
ance of  the  unintelligible,  on  the  authority  of  Rome, 
had  to  be  substituted  for  intelligent  belief.  When  com- 
pelled to  argue,  the  transubstantiationist  still  falls  back 
on  the  exploded  Realism. 

The  change  which  took  place  in  the  conception 
entertained  as  to  the  result  of  consecration  on  the 
bread  and  wine  could  not  but  affect  the  conception 
entertained  of  the  Eucharistic  sacrifice.  At  first  men 
offered  in  the  Eucharist  praise  and  thanksgivings  to 
God,  and  that  was  a  sacrifice  (Heb.  xiii,  15);  they 
offered  prayer,  and  that  was  a  sacrifice  (Justin  Martyr, 
Dial.  117,  Tertull.  Ad  Scap.  ii.)  ;  they  offered  of  their 
goods,  and  that  was  a  sacrifice  (Phil.  iv.  18);  they 
offered  themselves  individually,  and  that  was  a  sacrifice 
(Rom.  xii.  i);  they  offered  themselves  as  the  mystical 
body  of   Christ  collectively,   and   that    was    a   sacrifice 


190     THE    CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

(S.  Augustine,  De  Civ.  Dei  x.  and  xix.)  ;  they  offered 
bread  and  wine  to  the  Creator  in  acknowledgment  of 
His  sovereignty  and  of  our  dependence  on  Him  ("of 
Thine  own  have  we  given  Thee,"  i  Chron.  xxix.  14), 
and  that  was  a  sacrifice  ;  they  offered  the  bread  and 
wine  in  commemoration  of  Christ's  offering  on  the 
Cross,  and  that  was  a  commemorative  sacrifice,  or 
might  be  called  so.  And  all  these  sacrifices  were 
offerings  made  to  a  reconciled  Father  by  His  recon- 
ciled children,  conscious  of  their  reconciUation  having 
been  already  effected,  who  for  that  reason  approached 
their  Father  with  the  loving  confidence  of  sons.  But 
when  men  came  to  believe  that  the  bread  and  wine 
were  Christ  Himself,  not  only  did  all  other  minor  senses 
of  sacrifice  drop  away  from  the  rite,  but  a  propitiatory 
force  was  attributed  to  the  one  sacrifice  which  was  left. 
It  passed  over  from  the  class  of  peace  offerings  to  that 
of  sin  offerings.  The  offerer  was  no  longer  God's  child, 
joyously  feasting  with  its  loving  Father,  to  whom  he 
had  been  brought  nigh  by  the  adoption  in  Christ  ;  he 
was  still  in  his  sins  ;  God's  face  was  averted  from  him, 
and  Christ  was  now  being  offered  to  God  to  serve  as  a 
propitiation  and  satisfaction  and  to  restrain  His  wrath. 
We  gather  from  the  highest  existing  authorities  in  the 
Roman  Church,  S.  Alfonso  de'  Liguori  and  Cardinal 
Bellarmine,  that  the  present  phase  of  the  doctrine  of 
the  sacrifice  of  the  Mass  is  as  follows: — i.  That  when 
the  consecration  takes  place  Christ  in  His  Divinity  and 
Humanity,  Spirit,  Soul,  and  Body,  enters  on  a  sacramental 
existence  on  the  Altar.  2.  That  He  is  there  offered 
as  a  propitiatory  sacrifice  to  the  Father.  3.  That  His 
sacramental  existence  is  again  destroyed  (else  according 
to  their  definition  there  could  be  no  sacrifice)  by  the 


HISTORY   OF   THE    LORD'S   SUPPER     191 

priests  eating  the  wafer  and  drinking  the  wine  ;  but 
that  nevertheless,  4.  He  exists  still  in  the  consecrated 
wafers,  where  He  may  be  worshipped  until  He  is  eaten 
by  the  teeth  of  the  recipient. 

Many  other  consequences  follow  from  the  doctrine 
of  Transubstantiation  beside  that  of  the  propitiatory 
sacrifice  of  the  Mass.  Anselm's  dogma  of  the  Reception 
of  the  whole  Christ  under  either  of  the  two  elements 
was  a  logical  conclusion  from  it,  and  from  that  followed 
the  denial  of  the  cup.  Reservation  of  the  Sacrament 
for  worship.  Processions  of  the  Host,  Elevation,  Hearing 
Mass  or  attendance  without  communicating.  Worship 
of  the  Sacrament,  Fasting  Communion  imposed  as  a 
necessity,  the  tenet  of  the  eating  of  Christ's  Body 
by  the  wicked,  all  result  from  the  theory  of  Christ's 
entering  into  the  bread  and  wine,  or  the  appearances 
of  bread  and  wine,  on  their  consecration.  From  it 
consequences  upon  consequences  have  been  drawn, 
from  the  eleventh  century  onwards,  and  are  being 
drawn  in  our  own  day,  Le  Manreze  du  Pretre  is  a 
manual  ordinarily  employed  in  the  annual  retreat  of 
French  priests.  In  this  manual  the  priests  are  assured 
that  it  is  no  exaggeration  to  equal  them  with  God. 
*'  God  created  the  universe,  but  our  daily  creation  is 
no  less  than  the  Word  Himself  made  flesh."  "  God 
can  make  other  universes,  but  He  cannot  make  under 
the  sun  a  greater  action  than  your  sacrifice."  "  You 
are  creators,  as  Mary  was  when  she  co-operated  in 
the  Incarnation."  "  Jesus  dwells  under  your  lock  and 
key.  His  audiences  are  opened  and  closed  by  you. 
He  does  not  move  without  your  permission.  He  does 
not  bless  without  your  concurrence.  He  gives  only  by 
your  hands,  and  this  dependence  is  so  dear  to    Him 


192     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND    PRESENT 

that  in  more  than  1800  years  He  has  not  for  one 
instant  escaped  from  the  Church  to  return  to  His 
Father's  glory." 

The  tenet  of  the  objective  presence  of  Christ  in 
the  sacred  elements  slipped  into  acceptance,  as  we 
have  seen,  almost  imperceptibly,  and  without  prevision 
of  the  future.  In  the  above  quotations  we  see  the 
portentous  consequences  derived  from  it  in  the  nine- 
teenth century  ;  and  we  have  indications  of  further 
consequences  already  coming  into  sight,  such  as  ihat 
the  recipient  partakes  of  the  flesh  of  Mary,  from  whom 
Christ  took  His  Body,  and  that  Christ's  incessant  occupa- 
tion of  Heaven  is  offering  to  the  Father  His  body, 
brought  by  the  mystical  agency  of  angels  from  every 
altar  on  earth  at  which  a  consecration  takes  place. 

We  now  turn  to  England.  No  doubt  the  primitive 
and  traditional  doctrine  that  the  bread  and  wine, 
being  the  symbols  of  His  sacrificed  Body  and  Blood, 
are  means  by  which  the  benefits  of  the  sacrifice  of  His 
death  upon  the  cross  are  conveyed  to  the  penitent  and 
faithful  soul,  as  it  spiritually  feeds  upon  Him,  prevailed 
throughout  the  British  Church  before  the  Saxon  inva- 
sion, as  it  did  elsewhere.  We  may  reasonably  suppose 
that  some  of  the  heathen  Saxons  that  were  swept  in 
masses  into  the  fold  of  the  Church  by  Augustine  in  the 
south  and  by  Aidan  and  the  Celtic  missionaries  in  the 
north  and  midlands,  like  the  Franks  and  other  barba- 
rians, misapprehended  the  Lord's  words,  and  accepted 
them  in  a  gross  and  materialistic  sense,  but  we  have  no 
proof  that  this  error  of  the  multitude  spread  upwards 
to  the  educated  classes  and  the  clergy,  of  whom 
Archbishop  ^Ifric,  who  was  free  from  any  such  taint, 
may   be    taken    as    a    specimen.      It   was   not   formu- 


HISTORY   OF   THE   LORD'S   SUPPER     193 

lated  before  the  Norman  Conquest.  Then  Lanfranc 
and  Anselm  brought  in  from  Bee  the  theology  by  this 
time  prevalent  in  France  and  Italy,  to  which  even 
Hildebrand  had  bowed.  Lanfranc,  unaware  that  he 
was  himself  the  innovator,  and  believing  himself  to  be 
a  champion  of  orthodoxy,  wrote  a  book  to  refute 
Berengarius,  who  represented  the  traditional  but  for- 
gotten teaching  of  the  Church  ;  and  Anselm  drew  from 
the  now  accepted  doctrine  of  a  substantial  presence  of 
Christ  in  the  elements  the  legitimate  conclusion  of 
reception  in  one  kind.  From  this  time  onwards  in 
England,  as  elsewhere  in  the  west,  the  materialistic 
view  became  dominant,  supported  by  the  philosophy 
of  Realism,  as  long  as  it  prevailed,  and  on  its  overthrow 
by  the  authority  of  the  Roman  See.  On  the  repu- 
diation of  the  authority  of  the  See  of  Rome  there 
followed,  not  immediately,  but  necessarily,  the  rejec- 
tion of  transubstantiation  and  of  the  sacrifice  of  the 
mass.  Cranmer  and  Ridley,  perhaps  the  two  most 
learned  Prelates  that  have  ever  sat  in  English  Sees, 
had  been  brought  up  in  the  Mediaeval  conception  of 
the  Eucharist.  But  they  knew  familiarly  the  writings 
of  the  Fathers  and  Divines  of  the  first  thousand  years, 
and  gradually  they  came  to  see  the  incompatibility  of 
the  mediaeval  with  the  primitive  doctrine.  Ridley  was 
aided  by  Bertram  or  Ratramn's  treatise  of  the  ninth 
century,  and  having  by  its  help  cleared  his  own  mind 
and  resumed  the  theology  of  the  early  Church,  he  led 
Cranmer  to  the  same  standing-point  as  himself.  We 
can  imagine  the  discussions  of  these  two  seekers  after 
truth,  their  references  to  Holy  Scripture,  to  Augustine, 
Chrysostom,  Theodoret,  Gelasius,  their  longing  after 
spirituality  in  the  midst  of  the  materialism  with  which 

N 


194     THE    CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

the  faith  had  been  corrupted.  They  may  have  had 
before  them  too  the  words  of  Wychf,  "  This  Sacra- 
ment is  not  naturally  the  Body  of  Christ,  but  the  same 
Sacrament  is  Christ's  Body  figuratively.  .  .  .  That  this 
venerable  Sacrament  is  in  its  own  nature  veritable 
bread  and  sacramentally  Christ's  Body,  is  shown  to 
be  the  true  conclusion.  Hardness,  softness,  &c.,  can- 
not exist  per  se,  nor  can  they  be  the  subject  of  other 
accidents  ;  it  remains  therefore  that  there  must  be 
some  subject  as  bread.  Oh !  how  great  diversity  is 
between  us  that  trow  this  Sacrament  is  very  bread  in 
its  kind,  and  between  heretics  that  tell  us  that  it  is  an 
accident  without  subject"  {Trialogus,  Book  IV.). 

Ridley,  in  his  "  Brief  Declaration  of  the  Lord's 
Supper,"  states  the  two  theories  with  the  utmost  clear- 
ness, concluding — i.  That  "there  is  no  such  thing  in 
deed  and  in  truth  as  they  call  transubstantiation,  for 
the  substance  of  bread  remains  still  in  the  sacrament  of 
the  body."  2.  That  "the  natural  substance  of  Christ's 
human  nature  is  in  heaven,  and  not  here  enclosed  under 
the  form  of  bread."  3.  That  "that  godly  honour  which 
is  due  only  unto  God  is  not  to  be  done  to  the  Holy 
Sacrament."  4.  That  "  the  wicked  do  not  receive  the 
natural  substance  of  the  blessed  Body  and  Blood  of 
Christ."  5.  That  "  Christ's  blessed  Body  and  Blood, 
which  was  once  only  offered  and  shed  upon  the  Cross, 
is  offered  up  no  more  in  the  natural  substance  thereof, 
neither  by  the  priest  nor  any  other  thing"  (p.  109). 

In  the  next  generation  the  same  doctrine  was  held 
by  Hooker  and  by  Andrewes.  "  If,"  says  Hooker,  "  it 
is  on  all  sides  confessed  that  the  grace  of  baptism  is 
poured  into  the  soul  of  man,  that  we  receive  it,  though 
it  be  neither  seated  in  the  water,  nor  the  water  changed 


HISTORY   OF   THE   LORD'S   SUPPER     195 

into  it,  what  should  induce  men  to  think  that  the  grace 
of  the  Eucharist  must  needs  be  in  the  Eucharist  before 
it  can  be  in  us  that  receive  it  ?  The  real  presence  of 
Christ's  blessed  Body  and  Blood  is  not  to  be  sought 
for  in  the  Sacrament,  but  in  the  worthy  receiver  of  the 
Sacrament "  {Eccles.  Pol.  v.  6).  Andre wes'  words  are  so 
strong  that,  were  it  not  that  he  is  quoted  as  if  he  were 
on  the  other  side  of  the  question,  we  might  shrink  from 
using  them.  "  That  a  memory  is  there  made  of  the 
sacrifice  we  grant  willingly  ;  that  your  Christ  made  of 
bread  is  sacrificed  there  we  will  never  grant.  The  King 
(James  I.)  knows  that  the  word  '  sacrifice '  is  used  by 
the  Fathers,  and  he  does  not  put  it  among  novelties, 
but  your  '  sacrifice  of  the  Mass '  he  does "  {Answer 
to  Bellarmme^  viii.).  So  with  all  the  Caroline  divines, 
beginning  with  Laud  and  ending  with  Bull ;  so  with 
all  the  leaders  of  thought,  and  writers  of  the  Anglican 
Church,  down  to  the  middle  of  the  present  century. 
Without  exception  they  taught  the  doctrine  of  the 
Primitive,  and  condemned  the  doctrine  of  the  Mediaeval 
Church.  But  a  short  time  before  he  left  the  Anglican 
for  the  Roman  communion.  Archdeacon  Robert  Isaac 
Wilberforce  wrote  a  book  on  the  Eucharist,  restating 
and  enforcing  the  mediaeval  doctrine,  avoiding  the  word 
transubstantiation,  but  teaching  an  objective  presence, 
which  is  best  expressed  by  the  formula  of  transub- 
stantiation. Since  that  time  others  have  been  found 
within  the  Church  of  England  to  maintain  the  objective 
or  even  the  substantial  presence  of  Christ  in  the  elements 
after  consecration  and  before  reception,  and,  as  a  con- 
sequence, to  explain  away  the  Church's  condemnation 
of  transubstantiation.  But  they  represent  only  a  back 
eddy  in  the  main  stream  of  the  Church's  teaching. 


196     THE    CHURCH,  PAST    AND    PRESENT 

Historically  then  the  question  of  the  Eucharist 
stands  thus.  During  the  first  century  the  Apostolic 
Church  re-enacted  the  Last  Supper,  as  far  as  that  was 
possible,  on  the  evening  of  the  first  day  of  every  week, 
thus  carrying  out  the  command  of  their  Lord,  "  Do 
this  in  remembrance  of  Me,"  in  its  amplest  signification. 
What  He  had  meant  by  calling  the  bread  His  Body, 
and  by  calling  the  wine  His  blood,  they  meant  ;  but 
they  were  so  far  from  regarding  the  bread  as  having 
become  His  Body  and  the  wine  His  Blood  that  some 
of  them,  having  grown  careless,  ceased  to  distinguish 
the  sacred  elements  from  the  ordinary  materials  of  a 
common  meal,  which,  however  shocking,  is  an  eloquent 
testimony  to  the  nature  of  St.  Paul's  teaching  when  he 
instituted  the  Lord's  Supper.  In  the  second  century 
the  re-enactment  of  the  Last  Supper  still  continued,  but 
now  the  hour  at  which  it  was  held  was  altered,  from 
political  causes  external  to  the  Church,  to  the  morning. 
The  memorial  eating  and  drinking  was  made  to  precede 
the  eating  and  drinking  of  the  common  meal,  and  was 
accompanied  by  ceremonies  and  prayers  previously 
impossible.  At  the  end  of  the  century  the  social  meal 
was  once  more  transferred  to  the  evening,  and  the 
spiritual  feeding  upon  Christ  by  means  of  the  appointed 
memorials,  separated  from  its  original  surroundings, 
was  celebrated  in  the  forenoon  of  each  Sunday  in  con- 
junction with  the  matin  prayers.  The  thanksgiving  for 
the  fruits  of  the  earth,  which  had  hitherto  been  a  part 
of  the  complex  rite,  being  now  relegated  to  the  Agape, 
the  writers  and  teachers  of  the  third,  fourth,  and  fifth 
centuries,  such  as  Cyprian,  Augustine,  and  Chrysostom, 
dwelt  the  more  urgently  on  the  commemorative  char- 
acter of  the  Eucharistic  partaking,  frankly  calling  the 


HISTORY   OF   THE   LORD'S   SUPPER     197 

bread  the  Body  and  the  wine  the  Blood  of  Christ,  but 
explaining  that  when  they  spoke  of  the  Eucharist  as  a 
sacrifice,  they  meant  a  memorial  of  the  sacrifice  of  Christ. 
The  gross  imagination  of  His  actual  Body  and  Blood 
being  eaten  and  drunk,  and  of  the  Lord  Himself  being 
sacrificed,  had  not  yet  emerged ;  and  natural  reverence 
as  well  as  the  traditional  teaching  of  the  Church  made 
the  very  thought  inadmissible.  But  from  the  sixth 
century  onwards  the  rude  conception  of  the  uneducated 
masses  that  had  been  swept  wholesale  into  the  fold  of 
the  Church  began  to  prevail  over  the  traditional  belief, 
making  itself  heard  in  the  ninth  century,  and  in  the 
eleventh  century  triumphing  over  all  opposition  in 
Western  Christendom.  The  elements  were  no  longer 
types  through  which  the  realities  that  they  represented 
were  conveyed  to  the  soul,  but  they  were  those  realities 
themselves.  Christ  was  present,  not  only  in  the  heart 
of  the  believer,  but  in  the  elements  after  consecration 
and  before  reception.  Educated  theologians,  over- 
whelmed by  this  inflow  of  popular  superstition,  fled  to 
the  philosophy  of  Realism  as  a  resource  against  the  out- 
cries of  their  reason,  and  when  that  philosophy  fell, 
substituted  for  rational  explanation  the  now  dominant 
authority  of  the  Roman  See.  Wherever  the  influence 
of  that  See  has  prevailed,  the  doctrines  of  Transub- 
stantiation  and  the  Sacrifice  of  the  Mass  have  prevailed 
likewise.  In  the  sixteenth  century  those  nations  which 
repudiated  the  authority  of  the  Roman  See  repudiated 
also  the  doctrine  of  Transubstantiation,  and,  with  the 
exception  of  the  immediate  followers  of  Luther,  the  doc- 
trine of  any  objective  presence  in  the  sacred  elements. 
The  Church  of  England,  as  proved  by  her  formularies 
and  the  teaching  of  all  her  divines  down  to  the  present 


198     THE   CHURCH,  PAST    AND    PRESENT 

century,  returned  to  the  primitive  view  that  the  bread 
and  wine  are  the  types,  symbols,  and  figures  of  the 
Body  and  Blood  of  Christ  ;  that  what  is  conveyed  to 
the  mouth  is  bread  and  wine,  set  apart  for  a  sacred 
purpose,  and  that  by  receiving  these  elements  in  a 
faithful  and  humble  spirit  the  recipient  is  enabled  to 
feed  upon  Christ  in  his  soul,  and  receives  the  benefits 
wrought  for  man  by  the  one  true  and  proper  Sacrifice 
of  the  Cross. 


CHAPTER   XI 

PROTESTANTISM 

By  the  editor 

The  centre  of  Christian  thought  has  twice  been  shifted 
in  the  course  of  history  ;  first  from  the  East  to  the 
West,  then  from  the  southern  to  the  northern  West. 
Thus  the  development  falls  at  once  into  three  great 
periods,  each  with  its  own  peculiar  task,  and  a  char- 
acter of  its  own  almost  entirely  shaped  by  one  great 
race.  The  Greek  does  the  work  for  several  hundred 
years,  and  then  stiffens  into  monumental  orthodoxy. 
Then  the  Latin  takes  up  his  work  till  he  has  brought 
the  Catholic  Church  to  something  very  like  paganism 
in  the  age  of  the  Renaissance :  and  since  the  Reforma- 
tion the  new  thought  of  Christendom  has  been  almost 
wholly  Teutonic. 

As  soon  as  Christianity  outgrew  its  Jewish  cradle, 
it  of  necessity  became  a  Greek  religion.  Greek  culture 
was  supreme,  and  of  necessity  shaped  the  expression — 
not  the  substance — of  Christian  belief.  There  is  no 
such  contrast  as  is  fancied  between  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  and  the  Nicene  Creed.  Even  the  marvellous 
teaching  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  is  less  impressive 
than  the  unspoken  challenge  of  the  Teacher.  Who  is 
this  that  says.  Ye  have  heard  what  God  said  to  them 
of  old  ;  but  I  tell  you  something  better  ?  This  surely 
is  the  question  that  comes  first  ;   and  the  Greeks  did 


200     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

right  in  seizing  on  it  and  working  it  out  to  an  answer 
in  the  Nicene  Creed.  The  revelation  is  not  directly  of 
morality,  but  of  the  Lord  who  is  Himself  the  way,  as 
well  as  the  truth  and  the  life,  so  that  the  Person  of  the 
Lord  was  the  first  and  fundamental  problem  of  the 
Gospel.  Now  Greek  thought  had  in  the  providence  of 
God  reached  a  stage  in  which  it  was  eminently  qualified 
for  the  work,  trained  as  it  was  by  philosophy  to  seek 
for  truth,  and  wielding  a  language  of  unrivalled  pre- 
cision and  subtlety.  Yet  more,  the  old  Greek  belief  in 
man,  which  tempted  the  pagans  to  deify  men,  also 
helped  the  Christians  to  realise  the  old  Gospel  of 
Creation  which  enabled  them  to  see  that  divine  and 
human  in  the  Incarnation  are  not  foreign  to  each  other 
but  near  akin,  and  therefore  capable  of  a  perfect  union 
in  Christ  for  evermore.  This  was  the  conviction  which 
guided  the  Eastern  Church  through  two  of  the  four 
great  struggles  of  Christian  thought,  that  with  Gnosti- 
cism, against  a  tyrannous  philosophy  which  trifled 
with  the  historic  facts  of  the  Gospel  and  explained 
away  the  Lord's  humanity ;  and  that  with  Arianism, 
against  a  tyrannous  philosophy  which  confessed  indeed 
the  historic  facts,  but  explained  away  the  Lord's 
divinity. 

Presently  the  Greek  Church  came  to  a  stop.  Its 
task  was  to  ascertain  the  outlines  of  the  revelation ; 
and  this  was  fairly  completed  when  the  Council  of 
Chalcedon  rose,  though  they  still  went  on  refining  the 
theoretic  truth  of  the  Lord's  Person  till  Iconoclasm 
burst  in  to  convict  them  of  gross  idolatry.  The  causes 
of  the  stop  are  fairly  clear.  The  Church  was  too 
closely  connected  with  the  Empire  not  to  share  its 
decline  and   assume  something  of  the  same   fossilised 


PROTESTANTISM  201 

Byzantine  form.  Again,  the  Greek  search  for  truth 
was  too  purely  intellectual,  and  tended  to  a  barren 
orthodoxy  which  might  shelter  strange  growths  of 
untruth  and  superstition.  Again,  even  their  noble 
defence  of  the  Lord's  divinity  tempted  them  to  forget 
His  manhood,  and  by  a  natural  reaction  to  worship 
saints  who  seemed  to  give  them  back  the  human 
sympathy  they  could  no  longer  look  for  in  the  gracious 
Lord.  Indeed,  even  Athanasius  speaks  of  Him  far 
more  as  a  theological  Person  than  as  a  man  who  lived 
among  men.  Beyond  all  this  there  was  the  unrecog- 
nised difficulty  that  theological  truth  does  not  stand 
alone,  but  has  the  closest  relation  to  other  truth  which 
is  equally  divine,  but  which  could  not  yet  be  effec- 
tively compared  with  it.  Doctrinal  questions  necessarily 
engrossed  attention  for  a  long  time ;  but  in  the  fact 
that  the  Gospel  is  history  and  life,  not  philosophy  and 
dogma,  lay  the  pledge  that  sooner  or  later  it  would  be 
the  clue  to  truth  in  all  its  range. 

First,  however,  came  a  set-back  of  a  thousand  years. 
Latin  Christendom  started  on  a  lower  plane,  and  was 
more  deeply  influenced  by  the  stronger  paganism  of 
the  West.  If  the  Greek  evaporated  the  Gospel  into 
philosophy,  the  Latin  hardened  it  into  law.  He  never 
was  much  interested  in  the  Greek  discussions  of  the 
Person  of  the  Lord,  and  accepted  the  decisions  of  the 
Eastern  Councils  chiefly  as  a  matter  of  law  and  order. 
He  was  a  practical  man,  and  therefore  began  at  the 
other  end,  from  the  practical  fact  that  mankind  lies  in 
sin.  He  thought  it  too  speculative  to  look  on  the 
Incarnation  as  the  manifestation  in  time  of  an  eternal 
humanity  that  is  in  God.  He  was  content  to  regard 
it   as   the   practical   remedy   for    sin,   to    be    dispensed 


202     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

according  to  the  law  and  order  of  the  Church.  In 
this  Hfe,  and  most  of  all  in  the  evil  days  of  barbarian 
invasion  and  feudal  anarchy,  sin  seemed  nearer  than 
salvation,  and  the  Church  seemed  nearer  than  an  absent 
Lord.  So  Western  thought  did  most  of  its  original 
work  in  the  monasteries,  and  on  doctrines  hardly  men- 
tioned in  the  Eastern  creeds.  It  revolved  round  original 
sin,  predestination,  grace,  atonement,  justification,  sac- 
raments, and  above  all,  the  authority  and  functions  of 
the  Church.  The  East  remembered  that  Christ  is  the 
revelation  of  man,  and  began  with  Christ :  the  West 
forgot  that  fallen  man  is  no  revelation  of  Christ,  and 
began  with  man.  This  was  the  Arian  error  of  order 
pointed  out  by  Athanasius ;  and  it  was  mischievous 
also  in  the  West. 

This  low  view  of  man  determined  the  whole  attitude 
of  the  Latin  Church.  So  far  as  man  is  a  child  of  God, 
he  can  be  reasoned  with,  but  so  far  as  he  is  a  beast 
without  understanding,  he  must  be  kept  in  order  like  a 
beast  without  understanding ;  so  that  a  low  view  of 
human  nature  emphasizes  and  enlarges  the  functions 
of  authority  and  law.  In  this  way  the  Latin  Church 
tended  to  become  a  judge  and  a  divider  rather  than 
a  witness.  It  was  from  the  first  much  too  ready  to 
silence  inconvenient  questions  by  an  appeal  to  authority 
and  order  ;  and  this  tendency  increased  when  it  under- 
took the  training  of  the  northern  nations,  again  when 
the  world  turned  to  the  Church  for  help  in  the  eleventh 
century,  and  yet  again  when  the  world  began  to  rebel 
against  the  Church  in  the  later  Middle  Ages.  Educa- 
tion is  a  hard  task,  and  Rome  thought  she  did  well 
when  she  let  go  the  Greek  theology  as  unpractical, 
concentrating   herself   on    a   few   main    doctrines,   and 


PROTESTANTISM  203 

building  round  them  rampart  after  rampart  of  Church 
observance.  It  seemed  a  great  thing  to  save  any 
Christianity  at  all  from  the  wild  passions  of  northern 
barbarians.  The  policy  was  tempting  :  yet  it  was  not 
St.  Paul's  policy,  even  in  the  slums  of  Corinth.  The 
Apostles  had  but  one  gospel  of  Christ  crucified  for 
wise  and  unwise,  and  taught  men  to  hold  it  for  them- 
selves, not  to  lean  on  saints  and  confessors,  images  and 
exorcisms,  vain  repetitions  and  sensuous  rituals,  and 
such  like  "  helps  for  the  weak."  If  men  needed  them 
in  the  Middle  Ages  and  until  now,  they  did  not  need 
them  then,  though  some  were  "  weak  in  the  faith  "  at 
Rome  already.  The  Latin  Church  forgot  the  image  of 
God  in  man,  and  did  not  notice  that  her  own  glorious 
victories  were  not  won  in  the  strength  of  helps  forsooth 
like  these,  but  in  the  might  of  love  divine,  which  can 
burst  its  way  through  all  of  them.  More  and  more  it 
seemed  unfit  that  sinful  men  should  presume  to  speak 
directly  to  the  sinless  Christ,  or  rather  to  the  terrible 
Judge  of  all.  So  more  and  more  the  Virgin  and  the 
saints  replaced  Him  in  the  worship  of  the  people,  and 
more  and  more  the  Church  became  the  real  mediator 
between  God  and  men.  The  Church  was  the  one 
dispenser  of  grace,  and  outside  it  there  was  no  salva- 
tion. The  Church  was  the  one  mouthpiece  of  God's 
will,  and  from  its  commands  there  was  no  appeal  to 
conscience.  The  Church  was  the  one  interpreter  of 
God's  truth,  and  from  its  decisions  there  was  no  appeal 
to  reason.  In  this  way  church  authority  was  made  the 
single  and  sufficient  test  of  truth. 

And  church  authority  along  with  the  Church  itself 
had  fallen  into  discredit  before  the  Reformation. 
Reason    revolted    at   the   quarrelling   popes,   and    con- 


2  04     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND    PRESENT 

science  at  the  scandalous  popes.  Were  these  the 
Vicars  of  Christ  ?  Transubstantiation  was  an  insult 
to  common  sense,  auricular  confession  a  defilement  of 
purity,  and  wilful  treachery  to  heretics  an  outrage  on 
common  truthfulness.  Christendom  cowered  under 
Amurath's  rebuke  at  Varna.  And  had  the  Church 
Christ's  authority  to  make  traffic  of  God's  forgiveness, 
and  to  turn  purgatory  into  a  bottomless  treasure  for 
the  pope  ?  Whatever  was  true,  these  things  must  be 
false  ;  and  it  was  time  to  bring  the  Church  to  account 
for  them. 

The  Church,  however,  was  not  easily  brought  to 
account.  The  profane  might  scoff  at  hocus-pocus  and 
make  songs  on  the  disreputable  popes,  and  the  learned 
might  tear  in  pieces  the  False  Decretals  and  such  like 
pious  frauds ;  but  men's  hearts  misgave  them  at  the 
thought  of  serious  conflict.  The  Church  seemed  as 
strong  as  ever,  entrenched  behind  its  twin  strongholds 
of  transubstantiation  and  auricular  confession.  The 
one  made  the  priest  almost  a  god  on  earth,  the  other 
laid  private  life  at  his  mercy.  In  fact  the  Church  was 
stronger  in  one  direction  than  it  ever  was  before. 
Now  that  it  leaned  on  princes,  it  no  longer  needed  to 
stir  up  a  Pataria  to  lynch  the  married  clergy,  but  could 
use  the  power  of  the  State  to  put  down  its  rebels. 
The  Church  was  never  so  terrible  to  its  enemies  as 
when  it  neared  its  fall  in  northern  Europe. 

The  Reformation  was  the  stormy  centre  of  an  age 
of  revolution.  First  the  revival  of  learning  revealed  an 
older  and  nobler  literature  than  that  of  Rome,  an  older 
Bible  than  the  Vulgate.  The  decayed  and  worn-out 
world  grew  fair  and  young  beneath  the  spell  of  Greece. 
Peradventure  it  was  not  so  bad  as  the  Church  made 


PROTESTANTISM  205 

out.  Then  the  discovery  of  America  and  the  Cape  let 
loose  the  spirit  of  adventure  like  a  new  crusade.  The 
conquest  of  Mexico  is  a  romance  as  brilliant  as  the 
siege  of  Antioch.  The  Turkish  conquest  of  Egypt  and 
the  ruin  of  Italy  completed  the  revolution  of  com- 
merce. The  political  work  of  the  age  was  the  struggle 
against  the  overwhelming  power  of  Spain,  the  struggle 
maintained  by  France  till  she  sank  into  the  confusion 
of  the  religious  wars,  and  then  by  the  tiny  Dutch  re- 
public till  the  decisive  blow  was  struck  by  England. 
When  France  recovered  herself  under  Henry  IV.,  the 
danger  was  over  for  awhile.  A  second  period  of  con- 
test followed  in  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  so  that  the 
struggles  of  the  Reformation  extended  to  the  Peace  of 
Westphalia  in  1648. 

At  one  time  the  Reformation  bade  fair  to  cover 
most  of  Europe  ;  but  its  advance  was  checked  by  its 
own  divisions,  and  by  the  crafts  and  assaults  of  the 
Jesuits  and  of  the  princes  they  trained.  Its  permanent 
conquests  were  limited  to  England  and  the  Teutonic 
North,  dividing  Germany  and  securing  toleration  for  a 
time  in  France.  Thus  the  Pope  lost  half  his  domain  ; 
but  he  gained  a  much  stronger  hold  on  what  remained 
to  him.  The  Council  of  Trent  reformed  the  Church  of 
Rome,  though  the  reform  was  only  of  scandals  and 
abuses,  for  the  doctrine  underlying  them  was  not  re- 
formed at  all — only  the  reins  of  government  were 
drawn  much  tighter.  And  from  that  day  to  this  the 
Church  of  Rome  has  gone  on  the  same  line,  consoU- 
dating  and  developing  the  old  doctrinal  system  in 
opposition  to  Protestantism,  and  tightening  yet  again 
the  reins  of  government  to  breaking  point.  Will  it  be 
endured  much  longer  in  America  ?     However,  we  have 


2o6     THE   CHURCH,  PAST    AND   PRESENT 

done  with  Rome.  She  has  had  her  mystics  ;  but  her 
Church  in  general  has  contributed  very  Httle  to  Christian 
thought  since  the  Reformation.  She  has  chiefly  dealt 
in  unhealthy  casuistry,  false  miracles  and  noyel  super- 
stitions, and  anatomical  devotions. 

The  Greek  Church  laid  out  the  outlines  of  Christian 
doctrine,  the  Latin  guarded  them  through  the  evil 
times  ;  the  task  of  the  Reformation  was  to  find  some 
better  test  of  truth  for  them  than  the  church  authority 
which  had  gone  so  grievously  wrong.  Three  main 
forms  of  Protestantism  emerged — Lutheranism,  Cal- 
vinism, and  the  Church  of  England — Zwingli  is  too 
isolated  to  count  as  a  fourth,  though  on  some  points 
(not  the  sacraments,  if  he  really  differed  here  from 
Calvin)  he  is  in  advance  of  both  Luther  and  Calvin. 
These  three  then  agreed  in  rejecting  the  Pope  and  the 
mischievous  developments  of  the  Middle  Ages,  accept- 
ing the  ancient  creeds,  and  restoring  what  they  deemed 
to  be  the  primitive  doctrine  and  government  of  Christ's 
Church.  In  this  sense  they  may  be  each  called  catholic. 
They  were  further  agreed  on  Justification  by  faith  only, 
on  the  supremacy  of  Scripture,  and  in  general  on  Pre- 
destination also.  The  English  reformers  generally  went 
with  Calvin  in  this  matter,  though  fortunately  they 
never  made  it  a  binding  doctrine  of  the  English  Church. 
On  these  three  doctrines  the  three  groups  of  reformers 
were  in  the  main  agreed  ;  but  each  ^  group  laid  the 
emphasis  in  a  different  way. 

Justification  by  faith  only  was  to  the  Lutheran  the 
articulus  stantis  aut  cadcntis  ecclcsice.  He  might  com- 
promise on  other  matters  if  need  were,  but  this  was 
vital.  It  looks  scholastic,  and  in  fact  it  lent  itself 
before   long  to   a  scholasticism  as  wearisome  and  un- 


PROTESTANTISM  207 

spiritual  as  any  that  had  gone  before.  But  in  its  proper 
and  original  meaning  it  is  nothing  else  than  St.  Paul's 
doctrine  (almost  forgotten,  except  among  the  mystics), 
that  God  calls  us  to  know  Him  directly,  not  simply  to 
hear  of  Him  through  the  Church  ;  to  receive  our  for- 
giveness and  do  good  works  in  the  strength  it  brings, 
not  to  set  about  the  hopeless  task  of  buying  forgiveness 
with  works  of  law.  Thus  Church  and  State  are  alike 
holy.  The  Church  was  made  for  man,  not  man  for  the 
Church — for  Rome  had  gone  back  to  her  old  heathen 
sacrifice  of  the  individual  to  the  society.  Individualism, 
which  in  the  evil  days  had  fled  for  refuge  to  the  selfish 
cowardir.e  of  the  monastery,  had  in  the  mendicants 
renounced  the  selfishness,  and  in  the  Reformation  it 
thanked  God  and  took  courage  to  face  the  duties  of  that 
state  of  life  to  which  He  should  please  to  call  it.  The 
victory  of  faith  is  not  that  which  fleeth  from  the  world. 
Calvinism  proclaimed  the  same  fundamental  truth — 
the  supreme  sacredness  of  the  individual — but  preached 
it  in  the  doctrine  of  predestination.  Calvinism  is  out  of 
fashion  in  our  time  ;  and  if  we  mix  it  up  with  Armi- 
nianism,  as  most  of  its  enemies  do,  the  compound  is 
as  diabolical  as  they  say  ;  but  if  we  take  it  fairly,  and 
therefore  as  a  whole,  it  will  be  found  rather  one-sided 
than  untrue.  The  difficulty  is  not  in  predestination, 
but  in  the  doctrine  of  hell  fire  that  was  commonly  held 
with  it,  for  the  Bible  is  full  of  predestination — to  every- 
thing except  perdition.  Are  not  all  the  gifts  born  with 
us  matter  of  predestination  ?  Calvinism  bore  the  brunt 
of  battle  with  Rome  ;  yet  in  its  fundamental  ideas  it  is 
much  nearer  to  Rome  than  either  Lutheranism  or  the 
Church  of  England.  Was  not  Calvin  the  one  great 
reformer  not  of  Teutonic  birth  ?     He  held   and  even 


2o8     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

hardened  the  Latin  conception  of  God  as  a  Roman 
emperor  in  heaven,  an  inscrutable  despot  in  a  far 
country — though  he  tempered  it  with  a  much  firmer 
hold  than  Rome's  on  Christ  and  His  manhood — and 
worked  it  out  into  a  system  of  Church  government  and 
discipHne  as  rigid  as  the  Roman,  and  as  regardless  of 
the  State.  The  real  objection  to  Calvinism  is  that  it 
was  too  Romish.  It  took  over  persecution,  for  example, 
from  the  Church  of  Rome  ;  and  if  it  taught  that  infants 
deserve  damnation,  what  else  did  the  old  English  bap- 
tismal service  teach,  with  its  four  successive  exorcisms 
of  all  the  devils  from  the  infant  ?  Calvinism  saved 
some  by  election,  Rome  saved  some  by  baptism  :  the 
rest  were  a  massa  perditionis.  But  the  freedom  which 
Calvinism  took  away  with  one  hand  was  often  given 
back  by  the  other.  The  true  ideal  of  our  heart  is  not 
the  caprice  of  roving  fancy,  but  the  rest  of  a  service 
which  is  perfect  freedom.  As  the  old  monk  had  found 
this  in  willing  and  complete  submission  to  God's  calling 
in  the  rule  of  his  house,  so  the  Calvinist  found  it  in 
willing  and  complete  submission  to  God's  calling  in  his 
Bible.  And  there  he  found  something  that  lifted  him 
above  his  baser  self.  Had  not  the  Most  High  fore- 
known him  from  eternity  ?  Had  not  the  Saviour  died 
for  His  elect  ?  Was  not  the  call  to  good  works  as  much 
as  to  salvation  ?  He  could  do  them  too,  because  his 
strength  was  not  his  own,  but  given  him  from  on  high, 
and  given  him  for  the  very  purpose.  The  living  power 
of  Calvinism — the  inner  meaning  of  predestination — 
was  the  conviction  it  shared  with  Lutheranism  and  with 
the  mystics  of  all  ages,  that  sovereign  Love  can  save 
without  the  help  of  men — 

"  Thou  must  save,  and  Thou  alone." 


PROTESTANTISM  209 

Calvinism  has  fought  some  of  the  hardest  of  Christ's 
battles  in  the  world  ;  and  its  failure  was  the  common 
failure  of  Western  Christendom  to  reach  the  fulness 
of  the  Gospel,  that  Christ  should  taste  of  death  for 
every  man. 

The  English  Reformation  ran  a  different  course. 
It  bears  the  stamp  of  no  one  great  man,  but  that  of 
the  nation  itself.  It  is  as  national  as  the  Swedish.  It 
was  the  work  of  the  State  (the  Church  was  more  than 
once  compelled  to  acquiesce),  and  therefore  its  aim  was 
practical,  not  to  work  out  a  theory  with  French  com- 
pleteness, but  to  remedy  practical  evils  and  do  no 
more.  If  Edward  served  the  theorists  a  little,  and  Mary 
served  them  much,  Elizabeth  soon  brought  things  back 
to  common  sense.  She  at  least  understood  England. 
The  royal  supremacy  was  true  conservatism  as  well 
as  needful  reformation.  If  Henry  used  his  power 
tyrannically,  the  power  itself  was  only  what  the  old 
kings  had  used  before  him,  and  later  kings  had  never 
abandoned.  If  he  restrained  Convocation,  this  was 
only  the  Conqueror's  law,  that  nothing  should  be  enacted 
by  Church  councils  but  what  he  had  himself  ordained 
beforehand.  As  soon  as  the  Church  had  been  properly 
subjected  to  the  State,  the  way  was  clear,  first  for  the 
reform  of  abuses,  then  for  the  revision  of  doctrine. 
And  here  a  Conservative  policy  was  followed.  The 
reformers  did  not  change  for  the  sake  of  change,  and 
were  as  far  as  possible  from  the  Puritan  idea  that 
nothing  was  right  which  Rome  had  done,  or  which 
is  not  expressly  commanded  in  Scripture.  So  they 
changed  no  practice  unless  it  was  "vain  or  superstitious," 
and  altered  no  doctrine  unless  it  was  "  repugnant  to 
the  plain  words  of  Scripture,"  or  at  least  "  could  not 

O 


210     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

be  proved  by  Scripture."  In  some  ways  then  they 
made  Httle  change.  The  old  creeds  were  retained,  the 
prayers  were  to  a  large  extent  the  old  ones  translated, 
the  succession  of  bishops  was  carefully  preserved,  and 
even  their  old  jurisdiction  was  to  some  extent  con- 
tinued. This  generally  Conservative  policy  gives  a 
double  emphasis  to  the  changes  they  did  make.  And 
these  changes  are  much  deeper  than  the  Calvinistic. 
No  Church  has  ever  put  on  record  a  more  deliberate 
and  comprehensive  repudiation  of  the  distinctive  ideals 
of  Latin  Christianity.  Other  Churches  have  taught  the 
supremacy  of  Scripture  over  Church  tradition  ;  but  no 
Church  has  ever  taken  such  pains  to  make  that  supremacy 
effective.  It  is  not  merely  that  Scripture  is  constantly 
appealed  to  for  proof,  and  even  the  creeds  are  only  to  be 
received  and  believed  because  "  they  may  be  proved  by 
most  certain  warrants  of  Holy  Scripture."  Rome  quotes 
too,  though  very  commonly  in  a  super  grammaticam  sense. 
It  is  not  merely  that  Scripture  saturates  our  Liturgy, 
and  that  it  is  read  to  the  people  more  fully  and  sys- 
tematically than  in  any  other  Church.  The  laity  also 
are  encouraged  (not  forbidden)  to  read  it  freely  for 
themselves  ;  and  the  clergy  at  priests'  orders  are  urgently 
exhorted  "  to  be  studious  in  reading  and  learning  the 
Scriptures,"  and  give  their  solemn  promise  to  teach 
nothing  as  necessary  "  but  what  they  are  persuaded 
may  be  concluded  and  proved  by  the  Scripture,"  and 
"  to  banish  and  drive  away  all  erroneous  and  strange 
doctrines  contrary  to  God's  Word."  The  decisive  point 
is  that  the  meaning  of  Scripture  is  left  for  reason  to 
determine.  No  judge  is  constituted  ;  and  all  human 
infallibility  is  utterly  denied.  Is  it  in  Churches  ?  All 
the   great   Churches   have    "  erred,    not    only   in    their 


PROTESTANTISM  2 1 1 

living  and  manner  of  ceremonies,  but  also  in  matters 
of  Faith."  Is  it  in  Councils  ?  "  General  ^  Councils  may 
err,  and  sometimes  have  erred,  even  in  things  pertaining 
unto  God."  Is  it  in  the  Pope  ?  He  "  hath  no  juris- 
diction in  this  realm  of  England."  The  Church  is  "  a 
witness  and  a  keeper  of  Holy  Writ,"  not  its  final  inter- 
preter. It  is  assumed  here  that  Scripture  is  reasonably 
clear  on  essentials,  and  that  the  Holy  Spirit  will  so  far 
guide  every  one  who  truly  seeks  Him.  Truth  within 
will  recognise  God's  truth  without.  Here  then  in  the 
midst  of  care  for  the  society  comes  the  fullest  asser- 
tion of  individualism  that  any  Church  has  ever  made. 
Private  judgment  is  not  private  licence,  but  a  necessity 
we  cannot  escape,  and  there  can  be  no  faith  without 
it.  The  most  besotted  of  infallibilists  depends  on  it 
as  absolutely  as  the  most  blatant  of  freethinkers,  only 
he  likes  a  quick  way  down  from  the  pinnacle  of  the 
temple. 

The  promise  of  the  Reformation  was  hardly  realised, 
though  the  next  generation  was  a  splendid  period  on 
both  sides  of  the  North  Sea.  A  great  and  complex 
movement  is  not  to  be  judged  by  the  scandals  of  its 
beginnings — we  do  not  measure  the  French  Revolution 
simply  by  the  Reign  of  Terror — and  the  value  of  the 
Reformation  is  not  so  much  in  what  it  did,  as  in  what 
it  made  possible.  Now  that  the  method  was  found, 
the  advance  would  come  sooner  or  later.  Now  that 
the  great  tyrant  was  checked,  there  was  less  danger 
from  the  petty  tyrants  who  came  after  him.  They 
were  only  shadows  that  would  pass  away.     But  there 

^  The  reformers  made  no  distinction  between  CEcumenical  (East  andWesi) 
and  General  (East  or  West)  Councils.  When  Jewell  denounces  the  General 
Council  of  Trent  as  a  sham,  his  first  question  is,  Where  are  the  Greeks? 
Even  Sancta  Clara  (no  mean  special  pleader)  seems  ignorant  of  the  evasion. 


212     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

were  plenty  of  them,  for  the  Epigoni  of  Protestantism 
shrank  from  the  vision  of  liberty,  and  tried  hard  to  get 
back  into  slavery.  Lutheranism  soon  lost  itself  in  the 
scholastic  jangle,  and  Calvinism  followed  a  little  later ; 
and  in  England  the  reactionary  Carolines  came  to 
power  under  the  Stuarts.  Yet  England  fared  much 
better  than  the  continent,  for  even  Laud  was  no 
traitor  ;  and  it  was  good  to  have  a  voice  for  decency 
and  order,  and  a  protest  against  the  exclusive  domin- 
ance of  Calvinism.  Meanwhile  the  religious  wars  were 
brutalising,  and  sometimes  utterly  ruinous  ;  and  tolera- 
tion and  charity  were  not  likely  to  grow  up  among 
Protestants  as  long  as  they  were  compelled  to  fight  a 
battle  of  life  and  death  against  an  implacable  enemy 
who  systematically  used  and  glorified  the  resources  of 
treachery  and  assassination.  There  is  no  more  skilful 
devilry  in  history  than  the  work  of  the  Catholic  reac- 
tion in  that  age  ;  and  the  only  marvel  is  that  the 
struggle  against  it  did  not  make  the  Protestants  a  great 
deal  worse  than  they  were. 

The  peace  of  Westphalia  was  a  peace  of  exhaustion 
for  Germany  ;  and  a  few  years  later  England  settled 
down  for  awhile  under  the  Restoration,  and  France 
under  Louis  XIV,,  so  that  there  was  a  clear  pause  in 
the  wars  of  religion.  It  is  not  accidental  that  Science 
now  came  forward  to  make  its  decisive  advance. 
Modern  science  is  the  nursling  of  Christianity.  The 
unity  of  God  implied  the  unity  of  Nature,  the  Incarna- 
tion implied  the  dignity  of  man  which  gave  research  a 
worthy  object,  and  the  Christian  duty  of  patient  and 
impartial  search  for  truth  pointed  out  the  scientific 
method  of  research.  Advance  was  checked  first  by  an 
asceticism  which    "  despised   the  world,"    then    by    an 


PROTESTANTISM  213 

infallible   Church   which   reduced   Science  to    a   minor 
department  of  Theology,  and  decided  questions  even  of 
criticism  by  authority,  as  it  notably  did  at  Trent  ;  and 
now   that  the   Reformation   had   renounced  asceticism 
and    limited  the  province   of  the  Church,  the   advance 
was  checked  for  another  century  by  the  noise  of  the 
doctrinal  disputes  and  the  wars  they  caused.     But  now 
the  way  was  free,  the  method  clear.      It  was  time  for 
a  revelation  to   come  up  from  the  earth  to  meet  the 
revelation  which  had  come  down  from  heaven.^     Nature 
is   as  truly   God's   word   as   Scripture  ;    and   now  that 
Scripture  had  unsealed  it,  the  time  was  come  to  com- 
pare God's  new  Book  with  His  old.     This  has  been  the 
work  of  the  last  two  hundred  years  and  more  ;  and  if 
it  has  searched  out  the  weaknesses  of  Christian  theories, 
it  has  also  revealed  Christ  on  a  new  side,  and  unveiled 
whole  worlds  of  glory  which  our  fathers  never  knew. 

England  and  Germany  both  had  two  great  religious 
movements  between  the  Reformation  and  the  French 
Revolution,  one  to  piety,  and  one  to  scepticism.  But 
in  Germany  the  pietistic  movement  came  before  the 
sceptical  ;  in  England  Deism  culminated  before  the 
Methodist  Revival.  It  was  but  one  sign  of  the  wide- 
spread weariness  of  Church  controversies,  which  the 
Cambridge  Platonists  represented  from  the  side  of 
mysticism,  the  Latitudinarians  from  that  of  common 
sense.  The  Deists  also  stood  for  common  sense;  but 
unlike  Tillotson,  they  went  far  beyond  the  limits  of 
English  orthodoxy.  The  floating  doubts  of  half  a 
century  were  summed  up  on  their  behalf  by  Matthew 
Tindall  in  1730.  Christianity  is  "as  old  as  Creation," 
because   it  is  a  republication  of   Natural    Religion  and 

^  Hort  Hulsean  Lectures,  ch.  ii. 


214     THE    CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

nothing  more.  So  far  as  it  is  this,  it  deserves  respect, 
though  truly  it  is  not  much  needed  ;  but  anything 
more  than  this  is  harmful,  or  at  best  useless. 

Deism  was  really  too  shallow.  It  could  not  be 
more  than  a  passing  phase  of  thought,  even  in  an  age 
which  had  so  little  sense  of  mystery.  The  French  were 
behind  the  times  when  they  dressed  it  up  (with  a  little 
sentiment  from  Rousseau)  to  be  the  Gospel  of  the 
Revolution.  Yet  Deism  is  no  unworthy  opening  to  the 
great  contest  whose  end  our  children  may  not  live  to 
see,  for  it  threw  down  among  the  people  the  questions 
it  raised,  and  they  have  never  rested  since.  Is  the 
Bible  credible  ?  Are  miracles  possible  ?  Is  atone- 
ment needed  for  sin  ?  Deism  itself  never  went  on 
(though  others  soon  did)  to  the  final  question — Is 
there  a  God  at  all  ?  and  if  so,  can  we  know  Him  ? 
It  was  good  that  the  questions  should  be  raised, 
that  some  of  the  huge  masses  of  unbelief  which 
lurk  in  all  conventional  religion  should  be  brought  to 
light.  Faith  is  never  secure  till  unfaith  has  been 
probed  to  the  bottom.  Better  any  wrangling  than 
unreasoning  orthodoxy,  for  there  is  no  poison  so  deadly 
as  God's  own  truth  if  swallowed  whole.  Wesley  was 
right  when  he  welcomed  the  Deists  to  laugh  the 
Christianity  out  of  the  nominal  Christians  who  are  none 
the  better  for  the  name  they  bear,  "  and  then  He  whom 
neither  you  nor  they  know  now,  shall  rise  and  gird 
Himself  with  strength,  and  go  forth  in  His  almighty 
love,  and  sweetly  conquer  you  all  together."  ^ 

Meanwhile  Science  came  on  like  a  giant,  and  dealt 
at  every  step  another  blow  at  human  pride.  Astronomy 
reduced    the  world    of   men    to   a   mere   atom    of   the 

1   Works,  ix.  77. 


PROTESTANTISM  215 

universe,  geology  reduced  the  human  period  to  an 
insignificant  fraction  of  the  earth's  duration,  and  evolu- 
tion firmly  linked  man  himself  to  the  beasts  that  perish. 
And  if  all  is  law,  where  shall  we  find  room  for  our 
Father  in  heaven  ?  Is  not  revelation  finally  disproved  ? 
Not  at  all.  The  science  which  abases  man  reveals  a 
glory  of  God  which  fills  earth  as  well  as  heaven  with  a 
splendour  undreamed  of  in  past  ages.  And  to  that  we 
must  lift  up  our  hearts.  What  if  God  is  in  the  world 
as  well  as  above  it,  immanent  with  the  Greeks  as  well  as 
transcendent  with  the  Latins  ?  What  if  rather  the 
world  is  in  God,  and  in  Him  lives  and  moves  and  has 
its  being  ?  What  if  law  is  no  arbitrary  appointment, 
but  the  expression  of  a  Nature  in  which  there  is  neither 
variableness  nor  shadow  of  turning  ?  Its  awful  unre- 
lenting sternness  proves  indeed  that  God  is  not  easy- 
going good  nature ;  but  not  that  He  is  other  than  Love. 
Is  it  not  the  very  thing  we  ought  to  expect  from  Love 
too  strong  to  change  in  moods,  too  faithful  to  spare  us 
the  self-sacrifice  which  makes  us  like  Himself,  the 
suffering  through  which  the  final  summing-up  in  Christ 
is  working  out  from  age  to  age  ?  He  that  spared  not 
His  own  Son,  will  He  spare  us  ? 

The  French  Revolution  and  the  wars  of  Napoleon 
cleared  away  the  wrecks  of  mediaevalism  from  Europe, 
and  a  peace  of  more  than  fourscore  years  has  fol- 
lowed, broken  chiefly  by  the  struggle  which  transferred 
the  military  leadership  from  a  Latin  to  a  Teutonic 
power.  It  was  now  time  that  yet  a  third  revelation 
should  come  back  from  the  past  to  meet  the  revelation 
which  had  come  down  from  heaven.  Marvellous  as 
the  work  of  Science  has  been,  and  yet  more  marvel- 
lously as  it  grows  from  year  to  year,  I  still  incline  to 


2i6     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

think  that  History  is  quite  as  much  as  Science  the 
special  message  to  our  own  time,  and  that  it  is  giving 
us  a  second  and  not  less  thorough  sifting  of  our 
Western  thoughts  concerning  God  and  man.  History 
was  of  necessity  fragmentary  among  the  old  heathens, 
with  their  "  godless  multitude  of  gods  "  and  hatred  of 
barbarians  ;  for  the  unity  of  God  was  needed  to  reveal 
the  unity  of  mankind,  and  to  give  worth  and  meaning 
to  the  obscure  fightings  of  barbarian  peoples.  The 
Incarnation  is  the  philosophy  of  history,  as  St.  Paul 
showed  in  his  Epistles  to  the  Romans  and  Ephesians, 
so  that  his  clues  needed  only  to  be  followed  up.  The 
Apologists  and  the  Alexandrians  did  something,  Augus- 
tine did  something  more  ;  but  no  great  advance  was 
possible  till  the  Reformation  had  lifted  the  dead  weight 
of  authority,  nor  even  then  till  fairly  settled  peace 
returned  to  Europe,  for  the  first  time  in  fourteen 
hundred  years.  Scripture  gave  the  method  of  research 
to  Science  and  History  in  common  ;  and  Scripture 
gave  to  History  through  Science  the  illuminating 
thought  of  evolution.  The  teaching  of  History  is  less 
advanced  and  less  generally  understood  at  present  than 
that  of  Science  ;  but  it  is  not  less  profoundly  in- 
fluencing our  ideas  of  revelation. 

On  the  Old  Testament  we  must  speak  with  caution, 
for  we  are  still  in  the  thick  of  the  battle.  But  it  may 
safely  be  said  that  the  moral  difficulties  become  less 
formidable  the  more  clearly  we  recognise  that  Israel 
had  no  more  than  the  dawn  of  the  light  which  we 
believe  is  shining  more  and  more  unto  the  perfect  day. 
Nor  need  we  fear  for  the  general  result,  though  the 
book  be  sifted  as  never  book  was  sifted  yet.  God's 
guidance    of     Israel    in    a    direction    contrary    to    the 


PROTESTANTISM  217 

national  character  is  much  too  deeply  marked  on 
Israel's  history  to  be  overlooked  by  any  reasonable 
student:  and  whatever  modifications  of  current  opinions 
about  the  method  of  that  guidance  truth  may  finally 
require,  they  cannot  but  be  so  many  avenues  to  truth 
which  is  now  obscured. 

On  the  New  Testament  the  results  are  clearer ;  and 
they  are  not  in  the  sceptic's  favour.  One  Epistle  is 
no  longer  St,  Paul's,  and  another  is  no  longer  to  the 
Ephesians  only.  The  Apocalypse  is  shifted  back  to 
Nero's  time,  and  perhaps  the  First  Epistle  of  Peter 
thrown  forward  to  Vespasian's.  A  few  passages  are 
spurious,  though  not  all  even  of  these  are  unhistorical ; 
and  a  few  more  are  doubtful.  But  these  are  secondary 
matters :  seventy  years  of  searching  study  have  only 
settled  the  historical  integrity  of  the  New  Testament 
as  a  whole  more  firmly  than  it  stood  before.  Nobody, 
for  instance,  would  now  date  St.  John's  Gospel  as  Baur 
did,  some  seventy  years  after  the  Apostle's  death  ;  and 
nobody  would  now  feel  it  safe  to  charge  St.  Luke  with 
the  gross  historical  blunders  that  were  so  freely  fathered 
on  him  a  generation  ago.  But  there  are  deeper  things 
than  these  outward  evidences.  The  student  is  even 
more  impressed  by  the  subtle  accuracy  of  the  language, 
and  by  the  subtle  harmonies  of  thought  which  unfold 
themselves  more  and  more  to  patient  and  truthful 
study,  harmonies  not  only  with  other  parts  of  Scrip- 
ture, but  with  the  course  of  Nature  and  the  course  of 
History,  and  most  of  all  with  the  spiritual  truth  we 
have  already  learned  by  living  it.  Must  not  such 
words  as  these  be  words  of  life  eternal  ? 

Yet  History  gives  no  countenance  to  the  rigid 
systems  of  Western  Orthodoxy,  whether  they  call  them- 


2i8     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

selves  Protestant  or  Catholic.  History  joins  its  witness 
to  that  of  Scripture,  that  even  so  far  as  they  are  true, 
they  cannot  be  the  vital  things  men  take  them  for. 
The  Gospel  is  neither  a  Protestant  idea  nor  a  Catholic 
organisation,  neither  a  Greek  philosophy  nor  a  Latin 
law,  but  a  living  Person  including  and  transcending  all 
of  them,  a  living  Person  on  whom  faith  can  feed 
continually,  and  only  faith,  for  it  is  a  plain  absurdity 
to  fancy  that  anything  else  can  have  touch  of  spiritual 
things.  The  witness  of  History  confirms  the  instinct 
of  every  spiritual  man,  that  the  questions  of  govern- 
ment, of  discipline,  of  ritual,  of  dogma,  which  occupy 
the  noisy  world  are  very  minor  matters,  however 
needful  it  be  to  get  some  of  them  settled.  History 
points  us  back  with  solemn  emphasis  to  Christ  himself. 
All  Christian  doctrine  is  summed  up  in  Christ's  Person, 
all  Christian  morality  in  Christ's  example. 

The  warning  we  had  of  late,  that  we  are  more 
Latin  than  we  know,^  is  not  only  for  the  silly  creatures 
who  are  always  bewitched  with  the  last  new  finery, 
if  only  they  hear  say  it  comes  from  Rome.  Some  of 
our  stoutest  Protestants  also  are  enslaved  to  Latin 
glosses  on  the  Gospel.  If  the  Reformation  broke  the 
yoke  of  bondage,  it  could  not  of  itself  cast  out  the 
spirit  of  slavery.  Only  "  the  truth  shall  make  you 
free  ; "  and  the  truth  is  Christ,  not  Protestantism,  far 
less  Romanism.  Rome  has  not  always  towered  over 
Christendom.  She  was  a  minor  power  when  she 
committed  schism  against  the  Holy  Orthodox  Church 
a  thousand  years  ago  ;  and  she  will  be  a  minor  power 
a  hundred  years  hence,  if  she  cannot  conquer  England. 
The  future  is  not  with  the   Latin  Church,  unless  God 

^  Wilson  Hidsean  Lectures,  143. 


PROTESTANTISM  2 1 9 

raise  it  from  the  dead.  We  shall  find  a  better  guide, 
though  still  but  a  human  help,  in  the  older  Church 
of  God  which  flourished  before  the  times  of  Roman 
greatness.  The  same  Providence  which  has  brought 
us  round  to  the  old  problems  of  Christ's  Person  also 
bids  us  take  them  up  again.  The  knowledge  of  Christ 
is  the  revelation  of  man  ;  and  we  need  it  even  for 
the  reconstruction  of  society  which  is  the  visible  task 
of  our  time  ;  for  only  in  the  light  of  His  sinless  purity 
dare  we  look  up  the  steep  ascents  to  heights  of  human 
nature  towering  as  far  above  the  angels  as  the  deeps 
of  sin  are  sunk  below  the  beasts  that  perish.  Yet  we 
may  not — we  cannot — take  up  the  old  Greek  problems 
quite  on  the  old  Greek  lines,  as  if  all  things  had  con- 
tinued as  they  were  from  the  beginning,  since  the 
fathers  of  Chalcedon  fell  asleep.  Christ  reveals  Himself 
to  us  in  the  Latin  Church,  which  laboured  for  a  thou- 
sand years  to  teach  the  law  and  order  if  not  the 
freedom  of  the  Gospel  ;  in  the  Reformation  which  tore 
in  sunder  the  unspiritual  unity  of  Western  Europe,  and 
broke  the  yoke  of  human  infallibility  ;  in  the  students 
of  Nature  who  have  scrutinised  the  universe  from  the 
far  away  stars  to  the  dust  of  our  feet  and  the  nerves 
of  our  body  ;  in  the  students  of  History  who  have 
sifted  every  word  of  Scripture  with  microscopic  accu- 
racy, and  traced  with  loving  care  God's  training  of  the 
world  from  Ur  of  the  Chaldees  to  yesterday's  news- 
paper. The  change  from  the  times  of  Origen  and 
Athanasius  is  the  change  from  a  winter  to  a  summer 
landscape.  Every  tree  is  there,  and  every  twig ;  but 
almost  hidden  by  the  glory  of  the  spring  with  which 
our  God  has  clothed  it.  In  Christ  all  things  are  holy. 
In  Christ  the  Bible  is  holier  than  to  the  men  who  make 


2  20     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

it  an  idol,  for  its  record  is  of  Christ  ;  and  the  Church 
is  holier  than  to  the  men  who  make  it  a  goddess,  for 
its  witness  is  of  Christ.  "The  old  things  are  passed 
away  ;  behold,  they  are  become  new."  As  we  look 
back  through  the  long  ages  of  history,  we  see  the  evil 
consuming  itself,  the  good  perishing  only  to  return  in 
new  and  nobler  forms.  The  day  of  the  Lord  is 
burning  round  us  even  now ;  and  on  the  decision  of 
England  rests  her  future.  We  must  go  forward,  if  we 
are  not  to  be  choked  in  the  backwash  of  a  dead  super- 
stition. A  mere  return  to  Protestantism  would  now 
be  as  unbelieving  as  a  mere  return  to  Romanism. 
But  the  signs  are  rather  signs  of  hope.  The  blending 
of  parties  of  late  years,  their  willingness  (would  it 
were  more  I)  to  learn  truth  from  one  another,  is  a 
pledge  that  Christ  has  not  forsaken  us.  And  in  Christ 
all  the  questions  of  our  heart  are  answered,  and  all  our 
discords  have  their  everlasting  peace  and  harmony. 


CHAPTER   XII 

ROMANISM   SINCE   THE    REFORMATION 

By  the  Rev.  Chancellor  LIAS,  M.A. 

The  present  volume  of  Essays  is,  as  I  take  it,  an 
attempt  to  recur  to  the  first  principles  of  the  Reform 
movement  in  the  sixteenth  century,  as  a  preliminary  to 
the  application  of  them  to  the  problems  which  await  us 
in  the  century  now  so  close  at  hand.  Those  principles 
have  been  sufficiently  treated  by  those  who  have  gone 
before.  For  me,  whose  difficult  task  it  is  to  sum  up  in 
a  few  pages  the  conflict  between  the  absolutist  and  the 
reforming  principles  since  the  close  of  the  Council  of 
Trent,  it  must  suffice  to  say  that  the  Reformation 
presents  itself  to  us  under  two  aspects,  the  one  tem- 
porary, the  other  permanent.  The  dogmatic  basis  on 
which  the  principal  Reforming  systems  were  erected 
has  been  unquestionably  proved  to  have  been  tem- 
porary. Yet  at  the  time  such  a  dogmatic  basis  was 
both  necessary  and  unavoidable  ;  necessary,  because  in 
that  age  it  was  found  impossible  to  meet  the  majestic 
and  prescriptive  claims  of  Rome  on  so  wide  a  basis  as 
that  of  free  thought  and  free  inquiry  alone  ;  unavoid- 
able, because  the  Reformers  themselves  approached 
the  questions  of  their  day  with  minds  trained  in  the 
mediaeval  schools  of  theology,  and  great  men  though 
they  were,  they  were  unable  altogether  to  shake  off 
the  prejudices,   and   emancipate   themselves   from    the 


222     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

traditions,  of  the  theological  systems  in  which  they  had 
been  brought  up.  Scholars  and  thinkers  like  Colet, 
Erasmus,  Fisher,  and  More,  were  doubtless  abstractedly 
right  in  their  desire  to  see  philosophic  and  dispassionate 
inquiry  take  the  place  of  religious  bigotry.  But  they 
were  before  their  age.  Strong  religious  convictions, 
and  the  passions  and  energy  they  engender,  were 
necessary  in  the  Reformation  era,  if  the  conscience 
of  Europe  was  to  be  stirred  to  a  struggle  with  the 
gigantic  spiritual  authority  at  that  time  wielded  by  the 
Pope.  Colet,  fclix  opportunitate  mortis,  died  before  the 
storm  had  burst.  The  others,  timidly  and  unwisely,  as  I 
must  believe,  shrunk  from  taking  their  part  in  a  conflict 
in  which  they  fully  sympathised  with  neither  party,  and 
took  refuge  in  the  haven  provided  for  them  by  authority 
and  custom.  There  is  at  least  one  excuse  for  them. 
The  philosophic  mind,  accustomed  to  reflect,  to  discuss, 
to  balance  probabilities,  is  somewhat  apt  to  fail  us  in 
times  of  stress.  The  philosopher  is  the  man  of  all  ages. 
Luther,  Calvin,  and  Zwingli,  as  well  as  the  English 
Reformers,  were  the  men  of  their  own  day.  They 
applied  the  training  they  had  received  to  what  they  felt 
to  be  the  needs  of  the  hour,  and  they  generated  an 
amount  of  spiritual  force  which  enabled  them  practi- 
cally to  deal  with  those  needs.  But  the  bottles  in 
which  that  spiritual  force  was  confined  have  of  late 
''  decayed  and  waxen  old,"  and  are  like  to  burst  with 
the  pressure  of  modern  opinion.  The  Lutheran  and 
Calvinist  systems  of  theology,  so  long  dominant  among 
Protestants,  are  on  the  point  of  "  vanishing  away." 
Men  on  all  sides  are  recurring  to  the  first  principles  of 
Christianity  itself,  and  if  there  be  any  presentment  of 
those  principles  which   is   more  likely   to   find    favour 


ROMANISM  SINCE  THE  REFORMATION  223 

than  any  other  in  the  coming  age,  it  is  that  which  is 
found  in  the  writers  of  the  Alexandrian  school  in  the 
third  and  fourth  centuries. 

To  the  permanent   and  therefore   more   important 
aspect  of  the  work  of  the  Reformers  scant  justice,  I  must 
confess,  seems  to   have  been  done  of  late.     Not  only 
has  a  determined  effort  been  made  during  the  last  fifty 
years  to  rehabilitate  Roman  and  mediaeval  opinion  among 
us,  but  even  liberal  thinkers,  in  their  earnest  desire  to 
be  candid,  have  of  late  shown  less  gratitude  to,  and  less 
appreciation  of  the  men  in  the  sixteenth  century  who 
won  for  us  the  freedom  we  now  enjoy,  than  they  deserve. 
If  a  portion  of  their  work  was  transitory,  there  is  another 
part  of  it  for  which  the  world  is  permanently  indebted  to 
them.     And  this  in  two  ways.     First,  the  civil  and  re- 
ligious liberty  we  now  enjoy,  which  has  spread  so  many 
blessings   around,  and  which  we  may  hope  is  our  per- 
manent heritage,  is  exclusively  traceable  to  the  action 
taken  by  the  Reformers  ;  and  next,  the  spirit  of  reform 
itself  which   they   evoked   is   still   at  work    among    us. 
The    Reformation   was    not    confined    to   the  sixteenth 
century,  though  it  began  then.     It  has  been  operating 
ever  since,  and  never  more  widely  and  effectually  than 
at  the  present  moment.     In  truth  the  spirit  of  reform 
is  the  spirit  of  Christianity.     Or  may  we  not  rather  say, 
it  is  the  Spirit  of  the  living  God,  who  can  never  cease 
His  efforts  until  He  has  destroyed  every  abuse,  every 
perversion  or  denial  of  God's  truth,  and  has  brought 
not  only  every  form  of  human  life,  but  every  thought 
of  the  human  heart,  into  captivity  to  the  law  of  Christ. 
The   secret   of   Luther's  vast   success   was   that    he 
gave  voice  to  the  long-suppressed  yearnings  of  thou- 
sands   of   his    contemporaries.      His    defiance    to    the 


224     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

powers  that  be  penetrated  like  wildfire  throughout  the 
West  ;  but  the  infant  Hercules  to  which  his  protests 
gave  birth  had  still  many  labours  to  achieve  before  it 
reached  maturity,  and  many  more  still  await  it  before  it 
is  destined  to  achieve  its  final  triumph.  Governments 
took  fright  at  the  new  force  which  had  been  introduced 
into  the  world.  Despotic  monarchs  instinctively  per- 
ceived that  religious  freedom  and  civil  freedom  could 
not  be  separated.  And  so  they  set  themselves  to  put 
down  the  former  by  axe  and  gibbet,  fire  and  sword,  wher- 
ever their  authority  reached,  in  order  to  preserve  them- 
selves from  the  danger  of  the  latter.  The  new  doctrines 
were,  in  the  first  instance,  often  suppressed  by  torture  and 
the  executioner  before  they  had  any  time  to  take  root. 
In  those  cases  it  was  no  wonder  if  the  new  inspiration 
soon  died  out.  The  first  occasion  on  which  the  world 
was  called  upon  to  witness  the  death-grapple  between 
despotism  and  liberty,  civil  as  well  as  religious,  was  the 
war  of  Independence,  partly  religious  and  partly 
secular,  between  Spain  and  Holland.  At  the  outset,  all 
the  success  was  on  the  side  of  discipline  and  authority. 
The  task  of  the  fathers  of  civil  and  religious  liberty  at 
first  seemed  hopeless.  The  patriots  were  beaten  in 
almost  every  action  ;  the  Spanish  arms  proceeded 
almost  unresisted  throughout  the  land.  The  most 
fiendish  cruelties,  the  blackest  perfidy,  the  most  cynical 
contempt  for  human  suffering,  were  not  sufficient  to 
rouse  even  a  maddened  people  to  successful  resistance. 
One  might  have  fancied,  as  one  witnessed  the  repeated 
hideous  scenes  of  treachery  and  bloodshed,  that,  as  an 
English  chronicler  said  of  his  country  in  the  days  of 
Stephen,  "God  and  His  saints  slept."  But  at  length 
the  tide  turned.     "  The  heavens  themselves  "  seemed  at 


ROMANISM  SINCE  THE  REFORMATION  225 

last  to  "strike"  at  Spanish  "injustice."  "The  Lord 
arose  as  one  out  of  sleep  and  as  a  giant  refreshed 
with  wine,"  when  the  Spaniards  retreated  from  before 
Leyden,  baffled  by  Dutch  valour  combined  with  the 
fury  of  the  elements.  The  same  thing  was  repeated 
twenty  years  after,  at  the  climax  of  the  long  struggle 
of  England  against  Spanish  bigotry,  faithlessness,  and 
arrogance.  Once  more  the  "  stars  in  their  courses " 
seemed  to  "  fight  against "  the  oppressor  of  the  nations. 
After  English  valour  had  done  its  best,  the  storm  arose 
which  swept  the  baffled  fleet  into  the  North  Sea, 
whence  only  a  few  disabled  hulks  were  destined  to 
return.  The  fight  for  religious  freedom  has  been  a 
longer  and  yet  more  desperate  one.  In  many  coun- 
tries it  has  not  yet  been  achieved.  It  is  a  more 
arduous  struggle  in  precisely  the  same  proportion  as 
the  "children  of  this  world  are  wiser  in  their  genera- 
tion than  the  children  of  light."  But  that  the  free 
development  of  individual  opinion,  rather  than  the  voice 
of  external  authority,  will  be  the  means  by  which 
the  Spirit  of  truth  will  ultimately  lead  Christ's  disciples 
into  all  the  truth,  admits  of  little  doubt.  The  irpwrov 
y\rev^o<i  of  the  Roman  and  semi-Roman  theories  is  that 
there  exists  an  authority  competent  to  decide,  at  any 
given  moment,  every  controversy  which  is  at  that 
moment  in  existence.  Such  a  theory  is  at  variance  with 
the  fundamental  idea  of  the  Christian  Church.  That 
Church  had  power  to  define  what  the  message  was 
with  which  she  was  charged.  But  she  never  claimed 
the  power  of  settling  what  deductions  might  fairly  be 
drawn  from  its  principles.  External  authority  un- 
questionably has  its  place  in  all  communities  destined 
to  occupy   a  place  of  any   prominence   in   the  world's 

P 


2  26     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

history.  It  is  necessary  to  secure  order,  law,  the 
coherence  of  the  body  politic.  And  as  with  nations, 
so  with  Churches.  If  they  are  not  to  be  reduced  to 
chaos  by  a  process  of  disruption,  there  must  be  regula- 
tions, as  well  as  persons  whose  business  it  is  to  enforce 
them,  and  periods  during  which  it  is  necessary  that 
they  should  be  definitely  ascertained  and  laid  down.  It 
is  only  when  the  principle  of  order  and  submission  to 
lawful  authority  has  taken  a  firm  root,  and  when  its 
nature  and  limits  are  clearly  understood,  that  the 
principle  of  free  and  constitutional  development  can  be 
allowed  full  play.  It  is  here  that  the  disciples  of  the 
Reformation  have  made  their  gravest  mistakes.  Like 
the  Hollanders,  who  constantly  began  to  argue  with 
their  commanders  just  as  they  were  going  into 
action  against  men  long  inured  to  discipline,  the 
Reformers  began  to  quarrel  with  one  another  at  the 
outset  of  their  combat  a  outrance  with  spiritual  autho- 
rity, backed  by  superstition  and  long  prescription,  and 
enforced  by  the  sword  of  the  civil  magistrate.  The 
Calvinist  hated  the  Lutheran  and  the  Arminian  as 
much  as,  if  not  more  than,  he  hated  the  Papist.  What 
wonder  if  religious  freedom  found  a  home  only  among 
the  stronger  races,  if  the  weaker  ones  made  a  poor 
fight  against  authority  when  they  felt  they  were  hope- 
lessly divided  among  themselves  ?  Moreover,  unfor- 
tunately for  itself.  Protestantism,  in  its  struggle  for 
freedom,  has  consecrated  the  spirit  of  religious  division. 
If  men  were  not  altogether  satisfied  with  the  regulations 
of  the  religious  body  to  which  they  belong,  they  held 
themselves  justified  in  forming  another  for  themselves. 
And  they  have  not  been  content  to  view  secession  as 
a  necessary  evil.     In   some   quarters   it   has  been  ex- 


ROMANISM  SINCE  THE  REFORMATION  227 

tolled  to  the  skies  as  the  perfection  of  Christian  liberty. 
So  Rome,  like  Napoleon,  has  defeated,  and  continues 
to  defeat,  her  antagonists  in  detail,  and  is  able  to  pre- 
serve the  imposing  front  which  it  cannot  be  denied 
that  she  still  continues  to  present  to  the  world  even 
to  the  present  hour. 

Thus  the  struggle  between  Romanism  and  Pro- 
testantism has,  from  the  moment  of  its  commencement 
to  the  present  hour,  been  a  conflict  between  organised 
and  unorganised  effort.  Rome  commenced  the  conflict 
with  every  external  advantage  in  her  favour.  Not  only 
did  the  strongest  civil  governments  ultimately  range 
themselves  on  her  side,  but  she  had  all  the  prestige 
attaching  to  long-standing  supremacy.  The  shock  of 
the  Reformation  compelled  her  to  perfect  her  discipline, 
in  order  to  meet  more  serious  dangers  than  she  had 
ever  before  been  required  to  face.  At  the  Council  of 
Trent  she  succeeded  in  closing  her  ranks  into  a  compact 
phalanx.  The  body  of  religious  opinion  which  had 
grown  up  by  degrees  in  the  Church  was  crystallised 
into  a  system.  Purgatory,  the  worship  of  the  Virgin 
and  the  Saints,  Sacramental  grace,  Justification,  and 
other  doctrines  which  had  long  been  practically  accepted, 
were  carefully  defined,  and  some  extravagances  on  both 
sides  were  firmly  repressed.  It  was  felt,  moreover,  that 
some  of  the  worst  abuses  prevalent  in  the  Church  must 
be  put  down,  and  the  fact  was  recognised  that  even  the 
most  absolute  ecclesiastical  despotism  could  hardly,  in 
the  then  condition  of  affairs,  continue  to  exist  without 
at  least  some  regard  for  public  opinion.  Side  by  side 
with  this  careful  and  skilful  consolidation  of  Church 
organisation,  a  body  of  men  arose,  whose  special  pro- 
vince it  was  to  bring  that  organisation  to  bear  on  the 


2  28     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

life  of  individuals  and  of  nations.  It  is  not  too  much 
to  say  that  the  very  existence  of  the  Roman  Church 
during  the  last  three  centuries  has  been  bound  up  with 
the  activity  of  the  Society  of  Jesus.  Even  their  sup- 
pression is  only  the  exception  which  proves  the  rule. 
The  rare  instinct  the  Roman  communion  displays  in 
dealing  with  the  difficulties  which  beset  her,  soon 
showed  her  that  Rome  without  the  Jesuits  was  as  a 
warrior  without  arms  or  ammunition.  Therefore  the 
Order  was  re-established,  and  is  probably  the  stronger 
for  the  mistakes  in  the  seventeenth  century  which 
led  to  its  temporary  downfall.  The  existence  of  a 
body  of  defenders  pledged  to  nothing  but  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  spiritual  supremacy  over  the  human 
mind,  and  ready  to  adopt  any  means  whereby  that 
spiritual  supremacy  can  be  gained  and  secured,  is 
absolutely  essential  to  the  maintenance  of  a  despotism 
such  as  that  which  is  enshrined  at  the  Vatican. 
It  has  lately  been  said  of  the  leaders  of  the  Jesuit 
body  that  they  are  absolutely  destitute  of  religious 
convictions  themselves,  and  only  use  religion  as  a 
means  of  obtaining  supremacy  over  others.  It  may 
well  be  believed  that  this  is  so — that  the  man  who 
is  restrained  by  no  religious  scruples  or  prejudices 
of  his  own  is  best  qualified  for  playing  on  the  religi- 
ous emotions  of  others.  But,  however  this  may  be 
in  the  case  of  the  present  heads  of  his  society,  want 
of  intense  religious  conviction  certainly  cannot  be  laid 
to  the  charge  of  the  founder  of  the  Order.  Strange, 
even  bizarre,  his  religious  convictions  may  have  been. 
His  notions  of  morality  on  many  points  were  not  those 
of  the  religion  of  Christ.  But  it  must  be  borne  in  mind 
that  in  religious,  as  in  civil  despotisms,  fidelity  to  the 


ROMANISM  SINCE  THE  REFORMATION  229 

despot  outweighs  every  other  consideration  whatso- 
ever. If  submission  to  constituted  authority  be  the 
articulus  stantis  ant  cadentis  ecclesice,  then  the  end  will 
naturally  justify  the  means  whereby  obedience  to 
that  authority  is  enforced.  Firmly  convinced  that 
fidelity  to  the  Vicar  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  to  the 
rules  and  regulations  of  the  body  over  which  he 
ruled,  was  fidelity  to  Jesus  Christ  himself,  Ignatius 
Loyola  founded  a  society  on  the  principle  of  loyalty 
to  the  Head  of  Christ's  Church  on  earth,  an  object 
to  which  every  other  principle  whatever  must  give 
way.  Morality,  no  doubt,  even  the  highest  standard 
of  morality,  wherever  possible ;  but  wherever  this  came 
into  conflict  with  the  best  interests  of  the  Church,  the 
ordinary  rules  of  morality  must  be  set  aside.  Accord- 
ingly Loyola  and  his  followers  set  themselves,  with  the 
utmost  energy,  to  set  up  permanently  and  irreversibly  on 
earth  that  kingdom  of  which  Gregory  VII.  and  Innocent 
III.  had  dreamed,  and  were  admirably  seconded  in  their 
single-minded  efforts  by  the  self-will,  the  self-assertion, 
the  contentious  spirit  of  their  adversaries.  The  pages  of 
Ranke  will  tell  us  how  they  set  about  their  task.  They 
flung  themselves,  with  the  utmost  energy  and  judgment, 
into  the  movement  for  secular  education,  and  contrived 
for  the  most  part  to  get  it  into  their  hands.  They  used 
the  Confessional  with  extraordinary  dexterity,  and  espe- 
cially did  they  contrive  to  gain  an  influence  over  the 
female  sex.  Recognising  the  truths  of  the  absolute 
supremacy  of  conscience  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
imperfection  of  popular  ideas  of  morality  on  the  other, 
they  skilfully  adapted  their  principles  to  the  spirit  of 
the  age.  No  standard  of  morality  at  all  would  have 
shocked  the  public  conscience  ;  a  too  exalted  standard 


230     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

would  have  provoked  resistance.  So  in  their  books  on 
casuistry  they  lowered  their  morality  to  the  level  of 
public  opinion,  and  if  they  sowed  the  seeds  of  future 
disaster,  they  were  at  least  rewarded  by  immediate 
success.  They  were  acute  enough  also  to  see  that 
absolutism  was  still  the  dominant  principle  in  civil 
government.  It  was  their  policy  to  ally  themselves 
with  existing  despotisms,  to  accommodate  the  religious 
system  of  Rome  as  far  as  possible  to  the  wishes  and 
prejudices  of  the  civil  ruler,  and  to  point  out  to  him 
the  intimate  connection  of  religious  liberty  with  licence 
and  insubordination  in  the  State.  By  this  means  they 
gained  an  extraordinary  influence  in  public  affairs. 
Before  very  long  they  had  the  Latin  races  in  Spain, 
in  France,  in  Italy,  in  Belgium,  at  their  feet.  If  the 
spirit  of  freedom  was  stronger  in  the  Teutonic  races, 
they  at  least  won  back  Austria  and  half  the  rest  of 
Germany  ;  and  if  they  could  not  regain  Germany  as  a 
whole,  yet  by  arraying  Teuton  against  Teuton  they 
could  at  least  paralyse  German  influence  in  Europe, 
and  had  good  reason  for  entertaining  the  hope  that 
ultimately  all  Western  Christendom  would  be  won  back 
to  the  Roman  obedience. 

To  gain  this  end  they  used  every  weapon  in  their 
power — denunciation,  calumny,  intrigue,  bribery,  assas- 
sination, and  above  all,  persecution.  One  can  but 
make  a  passing  allusion  to  the  Spanish  and  Nether- 
landish Inquisition,  to  the  vast  number  of  lives  that 
were  sacrificed  by  their  means,  until  the  spirit  of  re- 
ligious inquiry  was  absolutely  crushed.  The  Jesuit 
morality  of  persecution  was  disturbed  by  no  scruples. 
Those  who  ventured  to  think  for  themselves  were 
"  burned  handsomely,"  as  a  Roman  Catholic  eye-wit- 


ROMANISM  SINCE  THE  REFORMATION  231 

ness  puts  it.  Cities  which  would  not  expel  the  Re- 
forming preachers  were  at  once  besieged.  The  doctrine 
that  no  faith  need  be  kept  with  rebels  and  heretics 
was  extremely  to  the  taste  of  the  tyrants  of  the  sixteenth 
and  seventeenth  centuries ;  and  again  and  again  the 
articles  of  capitulation  under  which  beleaguered  cities 
were  surrendered  were  most  shamefully  violated,  and 
those  whose  lives  the  victors  had  solemnly  promised  to 
spare  were  butchered  by  hundreds  in  cold  blood.  The 
connection  of  such  foul  breaches  of  faith  with  ecclesias- 
tical despotism  is  about  as  clearly  proved  as  any  fact 
of  history  can  be.  In  the  old  heathen  days,  conditions 
of  capitulation  were,  as  a  rule,  strictly  and  faithfully 
kept.  Heathen  deities  were  supposed  to  hate  and 
punish  perfidy.  Even  when  the  barbarians  swept 
down  in  their  savagery  upon  the  Roman  empire,  the 
breach  of  the  pledged  word  was  rare.  It  was  not 
until  submission  to  an  earthly  potentate  had  taken 
the  place  of  obedience  to  the  moral  law  that  such 
breaches  became  common.  As  early  as  1444  we  hear 
of  Cardinal  Julian,  the  papal  legate,  proclaiming  at 
the  battle  of  Varna,  that  faith  need  not  be  kept  with 
unbelievers  ;  and  report  states  that  the  Sultan  Amurath 
called  on  Jesus,  the  Son  of  Mary,  to  avenge  the 
treachery  of  His  disciples.  It  is  satisfactory  to  think 
that  in  this  case,  the  first,  so  far  as  I  remember,  in 
which  this  unworthy  doctrine  was  publicly  proclaimed, 
its  promulgation  was  rewarded  by  a  disastrous  defeat. 
Nevertheless,  it  continued  to  hold  the  field  for  more 
than  two  centuries,  and  even  then  it  was  necessity,  not 
conviction,  certainly  not  any  recantation  at  the  Vatican, 
which  led  to  its  abandonment.  There  are  few  students 
of  history  who   do  not  sympathise  with  the  Dutch  in 


232     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

their  war  of  independence,  when  they  were  at  last  in  a 
position  to  threaten  reprisals  on  their  perfidious  and 
dishonest  foes,  and  with  William  III.,  when  after 
allowing  Marshal  Boufflers  to  depart,  according  to  the 
terms  of  the  capitulation  of  Namur,  he  afterwards  re- 
arrested and  detained  him  until  he  pledged  his  word  that 
similar  engagements,  entered  into  with  equal  solemnity 
by  his  master,  Louis  XIV.,  should  be  observed  with 
equal  fidelity.  It  was  everywhere  the  same.  Violence, 
cruelty,  perfidy — very  seldom  indeed  reason,  argument, 
persuasion — were  the  means  by  which  countries  were 
won  back  to  the  Roman  yoke.  English  people  have 
been  persuaded  to  lavish  a  good  deal  of  sentimental 
admiration  on  that  interesting  personage,  St.  Fran9ois 
de  Sales,  whose  gentleness,  meekness,  and  persuasive- 
ness, combined  with  a  rare  eloquence  and  logical  power, 
we  are  asked  to  believe,  restored  the  authority  of  the 
Roman  Church  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Geneva.  The 
story  is  about  on  a  level,  in  point  of  historic  accuracy, 
with  a  mediaeval  legend.  The  hard,  stern  truth  is, 
that  Fran9ois  endeavoured  for  a  considerable  time  to 
use  such  means  as  have  been  attributed  to  him  in  later 
times,  and  did  not  make  a  single  convert  ;  and  that 
then,  despairing  of  making  any  impression  on  hearts  so 
hardened  as  those  of  the  Protestants  of  Annecy  and 
the  neighbourhood,  he  suggested  more  efficacious 
means  to  the  Pope  and  the  Duke  of  Savoy.  Backed 
by  a  body  of  troops  he  took  possession  of  the 
churches,  and  restored  the  mass  in  them,  while  the 
Duke  of  Savoy  threatened  imprisonment  and  confis- 
cation of  goods  to  those  who  refused  to  hear  the 
Roman  preachers.  The  Reformers  and  their  adherents 
were    deported    to    the   frontiers,  happy  only   in   this, 


ROMANISM  SINCE  THE  REFORMATION  233 

that  they  were  not  required  to  seal  their  testimony 
with  their  blood.^ 

By  such  means  were  the  Latin  races  and  some 
Teutonic  districts  recovered  to  the  Roman  fold.  The 
Thirty  Years'  War,  the  intervention  of  Sweden,  and  the 
ultimate  peace  of  Westphalia,  put  a  term  to  the  con- 
quests of  the  Papacy  in  Germany,  and  it  is  a  remarkable 
fact  that  the  religious  settlement  then  arrived  at  has  never 
been  disturbed.  Nor  is  this  the  only  remarkable  fact  to 
be  observed.  Religious  opinion  has  ultimately,  in  every 
case,  followed  the  lead  of  the  civil  government.  Where 
the  government  was  inclined  to  the  Papacy  the  popula- 
tion declared  for  the  Pope.  Where  it  favoured  Re- 
forming opinions,  the  people  accepted  them  also  ;  and 
from  that  time  to  this,  neither  party  has  been  able  to 
win  back  the  ground  they  have  lost.  This  points,  first 
of  all,  to  religious  exhaustion,  which  has  rendered  men 
weary  of  controversy  ;  next,  to  the  divisions  and  mutual 
hatreds  among  the  Reformers,  which  neutralised  their 
efforts  after  freedom  and  truth  ;  and  lastly,  to  the  ten- 
dency among  many  of  the  nations  which  adhered  to 
the  Reformation  to  substitute  a  sentiment,  a  philosophy, 
a  theological  system,  a  bare  spirit  of  inquiry  and  re- 
search, for  the  eternal  principles  of  the  "  faith  once 
delivered  to  the  saints  " — the  historical  religion  preached 
by  Apostles,  recorded  by  Evangelists,  and  handed  down 
in  the  creed  of  Christendom  as  the  one  unchanging 
deposit  committed  by  Christ  to  the  care  of  His 
Church. 

At  first,   in   France   at  least,   some   toleration    was 

^  It  is  further  said  that  the  Saint  offered  a  bribe  to  the  heretic  Beza,  then 
resident  in  Switzerland,  under  the  impression  that  the  Reformer  was  capable 
of  being  approached  by  such  a  proposal,  but  that  it  met  with  the  reception 
it  desers-ed. 


2  34     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

extended  to  the  Reformers.  Henry  IV.,  though  he 
thought  the  Crown  of  France  well  worth  a  mass, 
was  not  so  unprincipled  as  to  betray  those  who  had 
so  bravely  fought  for  him.  The  Edict  of  Nantes 
protected  the  Protestants  in  the  enjoyment  of  their 
belief.  But  the  engagement  was  ill  kept.  The  Hugue- 
nots may  have  been  turbulent  at  times,  but  their 
opponents  were  unscrupulous  and  unmerciful.  Savoy, 
then  a  state  independent  of  France,  continued  to  dis- 
play a  similar  spirit.  We  are  all  of  us  acquainted 
with  Milton's  sonnet  on  the  atrocities  which  disturbed 
the  peace  of  the  tranquil  valleys  in  which  the  Vaudois 
had  carried  on  their  simple  worship  for  centuries,  and 
if,  as  we  have  been  lately  told,  the  effect  of  Cromwell's 
intervention  has  been  exaggerated,  there  has  been  no 
exaggeration  of  the  cruelties  against  which  our  great 
national  poet  protested.  As  time  went  on  things  went 
from  bad  to  worse  in  the  countries  of  the  Latin  race. 
The  voice  of  religious  freedom  in  Spain  had  long  since 
been  reduced  to  silence,  and  with  it  went  the  moral 
strength  of  the  nation,  whose  history,  from  that  day 
to  this,  has  been  one  of  moral  and  political,  and, 
it  might  be  added,  religious  corruption  and  decay. 
Italy  was  the  battle-ground  of  the  stranger,  and  it  is 
a  question  whether  the  oppression  of  foreign  races,  of 
native  princes,  or  of  the  States  of  the  Church,  was  the 
worst.  Ranke  tells  us  how  the  dominions  of  the  Pope 
were  harassed  by  mal- administration  and  excessive 
taxation,  and  it  is  remarkable  how,  at  the  present 
moment,  though  in  other  parts  of  Europe  it  is  the 
ignorant  peasantry  who  form  the  chief  support  of  the 
Papal  cause,  in  the  States  of  the  Church  it  is  the 
peasantry  who  hate  the  Pope  most,  so  keen  a  sense 


ROMANISM  SINCE  THE  REFORMATION   235 

do  they  continue  to  entertain  of  the  injustice  and 
oppression  to  which  they  were  exposed  at  the  hands 
of  his  officials.  As  for  France,  she  also  steadily  de- 
clined in  prosperity  and  in  her  influence  on  Europe. 
Despotism,  ambition,  civil  and  religious  oppression 
went  hand  in  hand,  and  slowly  and  surely  the  moral 
and  material  life-blood  of  the  nation  was  drained  away. 
People  in  this  age  have  unfortunately  forgotten  the 
cruel  persecutions  of  the  Protestants,  the  horrors  of 
the  Dragonnades,  in  comparison  with  which  the  recent 
Armenian  atrocities  would  scarcely  seem  more  shock- 
ing. It  might  be  well  that  they  should  be  forgotten, 
had  it  not  also  come  to  be  more  than  half  forgotten,  that 
the  principles  of  the  Reformation  alone  delivered  Europe 
from  atrocities  such  as  these.  Had  it  not  been  for 
those  principles,  the  fiendish  outrages  which  the  infallible 
head  of  the  Church  frequently  encouraged,  and  never 
took  the  least  trouble  to  repress  or  to  denounce,  would 
still,  unless  Protestantism  had  meanwhile  been  extir- 
pated, have  been  going  on,  under  the  sanction  of  the 
so-called  "  Vicar "  of  the  "  Prince  of  Peace."  The 
Revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes  in  1685  was  a 
wanton  and  inexcusable  infraction  of  a  religious  peace 
which  had  existed  for  a  century,  and  it  inflicted  cruel 
losses  and  wrongs  on  the  most  industrious,  the  most 
peaceable,  and  not  the  least  loyal  of  the  subjects  of 
the  Grand  Monarque.  Our  own  national  historian.  Lord 
Macaulay,  has  sketched,  with  his  usual  inimitable 
clearness  and  point,  the  effect  of  this  foolish  as  well 
as  barbarous  measure.  It  is  a  satisfaction  to  think  that 
it  not  only  turned  out  to  be  a  source  of  national 
weakness  and  humiliation  for  France,  but  by  substi- 
tuting religious  subjection   for   religious   conviction,  it 


2  36     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

paved  the  way  for  that  fierce  revolt  against  the  hierarchy 
which  was  one  of  the  distinguishing  characteristics  of 
the  French  Revolution. 

Nor  were  the  Jesuits,  who  contrived  to  gain  the 
upper  hand  in  France  as  well  as  elsewhere,  less  reso- 
lute and  less  revengeful  in  extirpating  the  last  lingering 
remnants  of  freedom  of  opinion  in  their  own  Church. 
Molinos  was  burned  at  Rome  for  believing  that  the  soul 
should  be  passive  in  its  reception  of  impulses  from  on 
high,  rather  than  active  in  seeking  them.  Madame  Guyon 
was  rewarded  for  her  expression  of  similar  opinions  by 
relentless  persecution  and  a  dungeon  ;  and  the  great, 
the  good,  the  pious  Fenelon,  though  he  had  been  en- 
trusted with  the  education  of  the  Duke  of  Burgundy, 
son  of  Louis  XIV.,  was  involved  in  her  disgrace.^  The 
struggle  of  the  Jesuits  with  Port  Royal  deserves  more 
extended  mention,  since  it  has  been  the  means,  after 
a  long  interval,  of  inflicting  the  most  serious  blow  the 
Church  of  Rome  has  sustained  since  the  Reformation. 
In  the  earlier  part  of  the  seventeenth  century  there 
arose  a  great  struggle  between  the  followers  of  Augus- 
tine and  the  Jesuits.  The  former  accused  the  latter 
of  Pelagianism  ;  and  Paul  V.,  in  1607,  had  gone  so  far 
as  to  censure  a  work  by  the  Jesuit  Molina,  published 
in  Portugal  in  1588,  as  Pelagian.  The  controversy 
waxed  warm.  After  the  death  of  Cornelius  Janssen, 
Bishop  of  Ypres,  in  Belgium,  his  "Augustinus"  was  pub- 
lished.    In  this  work  he  maintained  with  great  ability 

^  La  Combe,  Madame  Guyon's  confessor,  was  also  imprisoned  on  the  plea 
that  he  had  imparted  these  views  to  his  penitent,  and  was  kept  in  prison  till 
he  had  lost  his  reason  !  This  was  in  the  last  decade  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, just  when  England  was  passing  her  Toleration  Act.  Cruel  as  the  laws 
of  the  Restoration  were  against  Nonconformists,  they  displayed  no  such  ferocity 
as  was  shown  in  France  to  all  who  did  not  abjectly  submit  to  the  opinions 
of  the  sovereign. 


ROMANISM  SINCE  THE  REFORMATION  237 

the  Pelagian  tendency  of  the  Jesuit  teaching.  The 
Jesuits,  embittered  by  the  influence  Janssen's  disciples 
were  gaining  in  France,  replied  by  procuring  the  con- 
demnation of  Janssen's  book  by  Urban  VIII.  The 
Abbe  St.  Cyran,  a  friend  of  Janssen's,  was  at  this  time 
Director  of  the  Convent  at  Port  Royal,  then  presided 
over  by  the  celebrated  Mere  Angelique,  whose  secular 
name  was  Marie  Jacqueline  Arnauld.  Around  these 
soon  gathered  a  band  of  learned  and  able  men,  whose 
names  have  become  well  known  to  posterity  :  Arnauld 
d'Andilly,  Antoine  Arnauld,  De  Sacy,  the  translator  of 
the  Scriptures,  Tillemont  the  historian,  Quesnel,  Nicole, 
and,  greatest  of  them  all,  the  immortal  Pascal,  whose 
"Provincial  Letters"  have  thrown  such  light  on  the  re- 
markable methods  of  reasoning  to  which  the  Jesuits  were 
addicted.  St.  Cyran  set  himself  to  oppose  the  morality 
taught  by  the  Jesuits  in  the  Confessional.  For  this  the 
Jesuits  prevailed  on  Cardinal  Richelieu  to  imprison  him. 
He  was  released,  but  his  health  had  suffered  so  much 
by  his  imprisonment  that  he  soon  died.  Others  of  his 
party  were  treated  with  similar  rigour.  The  intense 
sincerity  and  earnestness,  however,  of  the  Port  Royal- 
ists, as  they  were  now  called,  continued  to  attract 
attention,  though  it  must  be  confessed  that  their  high 
qualities  were  mingled  with  credulity,  superstition,  and 
an  excessive  and  unreasonable  asceticism.  Neither  argu- 
ment nor  intrigue,  however,  were  sufficient  to  crush  them.^ 
The  Jesuits,  therefore,  after  an  attempt  to  close  Port  Royal 
altogether,  at  length  obtained  a  Papal  Bull  condemning 

^  It  was  reported  that  a  bishop  in  the  Jesuit  interest,  entering  the  refectory 
of  a  monastery  as  the  reader  was  uttering  the  words,  "  For  it  is  God  that 
worketh  in  us  both  to  will  and  to  do  of  His  good  pleasure,"  angrily  asked 
from  what  Jansenist  book  these  heretical  words  were  taken.  Argument  ia 
such  hands  was  not  likely  to  be  very  successful. 


2  38     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

five  propositions  which  they  asserted  were  extracted 
from  Janssen's  "  Augustinus."  The  Port  Royalists  re- 
pHed  that  the  propositions  were  unquestionably  false 
and  worthy  of  condemnation,  but  that  Janssen  had  never 
maintained  them.  The  Jesuits,  having  complete  influ- 
ence over  Louis  XIV.,  who  had  taken  the  reins  of 
power  into  his  own  hands  on  the  death  of  Mazarin, 
obtained  his  sanction  to  the  forcible  closing  of  the 
whole  establishment  at  Port  Royal,  which  was  regarded 
as  the  head-quarters  of  Janssen's  party.  The  Port 
Royalists  were  driven  into  exile  ;  but  three  bishops  in 
Holland,  the  Archbishop  of  Utrecht  and  the  Bishops 
of  Haarlem  and  Deventer,  remained  firm  to  Janssen's 
•cause,  and  continued  to  maintain,  in  flat  contradiction 
to  the  Pope,  that  Janssen  had  never  affirmed  the  pro- 
positions it  was  sought  to  attribute  to  him.  As  they 
remained  obstinate,  the  Papal  excommunication  was 
launched  against  them,  not,  be  it  observed,  for  heresy, 
but  for  disputing  the  Papal  infallibility  on  a  question, 
not  of  doctrine,  but  of  fact.  The  small  Jansenist,  or 
more  properly.  Old  Catholic  Church  of  Holland,  con- 
tinued to  exist,  though  in  declining  numbers,  in  spite 
of  the  papal  excommunication.  After  much  hesitation, 
during  the  course  of  which  the  succession  to  these 
Bishoprics  had  actually  more  than  once  died  out,  it 
was  resolved  to  transmit  it.  And  through  the  de- 
scendants of  these  protesting  bishops,  a  valid  Episcopal 
succession,  according  to  the  principles  of  canonicity 
acknowledged  in  the  West,  was  transmitted  to  the  pre- 
sent Old  Catholic  Bishops  of  Germany  and  Switzerland, 
and  to  the  ecclesiastic  recently  consecrated  to  preside 
over  the  Independent  Polish  Catholic  Church  in  the 
United  States. 


ROMANISM  SINCE  THE  REFORMATION  239 

The  policy  of  the  Jesuits  had  thus  been  to  crush 
out  all  independence  of  thought  by  measures  of  violence. 
They  allied  themselves  with  the  despotisms  of  the  day, 
and  what  they  failed  to  secure  by  fair  means,  they 
contrived  to  obtain  by  force.  The  natural  result  fol- 
lowed. The  stronger  and  more  deeply  earnest  among 
the  persecuted  fled  to  foreign  countries  to  find  that  liberty 
which  was  denied  them  at  home.  The  weaker  and  less 
conscientious  submitted  to  authority,  and  rendered  an 
outward  conformity  to  rites  and  doctrines  which  in  their 
hearts  they  did  not  believe.  Thus  by  degrees,  in  the 
nations  which  submitted  to  the  Papacy,  sober  and 
rational  religious  conviction  ceased  to  exist.  In  Spain 
the  national  energy  died  out,  and  with  it  enlighten- 
ment, religious  and  secular.  Italy  had  no  national  life 
at  all,  but  still  lay,  crushed  and  bleeding,  in  the  hands 
of  her  oppressors.  France  and  Austria  alone  were  left 
to  support  the  Roman  Catholic  interests  in  Europe. 
The  latter,  as  a  mere  congeries  of  nationalities,  was  all 
along  in  the  same  perilous  position  in  which  we  see 
her  at  the  present  moment.  France,  however,  remained 
a  predominant  force  in  European  politics.  But  the 
policy  of  Jesuitism  was  not  long  in  displaying  its  natural 
results.  The  later  years  of  Louis  XIV.  were  years  of 
humiliation  and  defeat.  During  the  whole  of  the 
eighteenth  century  Roman  Catholic  France  and  Austria 
were  on  the  decline,  while  Protestant  England  and 
Prussia  were  rapidly  rising  into  pre-eminence,  the  latter 
in  Europe,  the  former  more  especially  in  America  and 
in  Hindostan,  from  both  of  which  she  expelled  the 
French  by  force  of  arms.  The  growth  of  indifferentism 
in  France,  the  natural  result,  as  has  been  said,  of  the 
religious  policy  of  her  monarch  under  the  direction  of 


240     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

the  Jesuits,  filled  the  hearts  of  earnest  men  with  deep 
forebodings,  and  historical  critics  have  attributed  to  that 
policy,  first  the  scepticism  of  Voltaire  and  the  Encyclo- 
paedists, and  afterwards  the  French  Revolution.  The 
cynical  disregard  of  all  moral  principle  on  the  part  of  the 
dominant  classes  in  Church  and  State,  coupled  with  the 
repressive  measures  which  had  destroyed  intelligent 
religious  opinion,  and  substituted  for  it  fanaticism  on  the 
one  hand,  or  a  mere  external  conformity  on  the  other, 
were  the  two  factors  which  brought  about  the  excesses 
at  which  the  whole  world  stood  aghast.  It  is  true  that 
the  miserable  failure  of  Jesuitism  in  the  seventeenth 
century  brought  about  the  suppression  of  the  Jesuits 
in  the  eighteenth.  But  it  was  soon  found  that  the 
modern  Papacy  without  the  Jesuits  was  an  impossibility. 
The  Pope  might  do  without  them  in  the  religious  apathy 
which  distinguished  the  early  part  of  the  eighteenth 
century ;  but  the  revival  of  religious  energy  neces- 
sitated an  organisation  devoted  to  Papal  interests.  The 
Jesuits  were  recalled  into  existence.  As  has  already 
been  remarked,  they  have  learned  wisdom  by  their 
former  failure,  and  are  the  mainstay  of  the  Roman 
system  at  the  present  moment. 

The  evils  of  religious  despotism,  however,  are  less 
clearly  marked  on  the  surface  than  those  of  civil  oppres- 
sion. There  is  much  which  tends  to  conceal  from  the 
superficial  observer  the  real  demoralisation  which  lurks 
beneath  the  Ultramontane  appearance  of  piety.  He 
sees  that  the  churches  are  frequented ;  but  he  does 
not  ask  himself  what  are  the  nature  of  the  influences 
which  fill  them,  nor  does  he  ask  whether  the  moral  and 
religious  tone  of  the  persons  who  thus  throng  to  church 
is    better   than    elsewhere.     Religious    societies    are  at 


ROMANISM  SINCE  THE  REFORMATION  241 

work,  but  it  is  not  observed  that  they  lie  apart  from  the 
feelings  of  the  nation  at  large.  Spasmodic  reactions 
there  continually  are,  where  Christianity  is  identified 
with  Romanism.  Such  a  reaction  has  lately  been 
in  progress  in  Spain  and  in  France.  It  could  not 
be  otherwise.  The  religious  sentiment  is  a  necessity 
for  the  human  heart.  And  in  these  countries  no 
form  of  the  religious  idea  has  taken  root,  save  that 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  But  these  reactions 
do  not  last  long.  There  is  no  permanent  foundation 
of  rational  religious  conviction  to  build  upon.  And  so, 
when  they  have  passed  away,  the  conscience  of  the 
nation  which  has  experienced  them  is  more  hardened 
than  before.  The  "  last  state "  of  the  penitent 
"is  worse  than  the  first."  As  with  nations,  so  with 
individuals.  The  fear  of  death  causes  a  man  to  send 
for  the  priest  whom  he  has  scorned  all  through  his 
life.  The  need  of  religion  for  women  and  children  is 
a  creed  to  the  man  who  has  no  other.  And  so  he 
supports  the  priest  against  the  religious  reformer,  and 
regards  the  latter  as  a  pestilent  disturber  of  the  peace 
of  society.  Beside  these  occasional  and  short-lived 
reactions  in  Roman  Catholic  countries,  it  cannot  be 
denied  that  everywhere  the  "  dissidence  of  Dissent," 
the  tendency,  that  is,  which  Protestantism  has  dis- 
played towards  infinite  sub  -  division,  has  been  a 
source  of  strength  to  Rome  both  before  and  since 
Bossuet's  "  Variations  of  Protestantism  "  saw  the  light. 
In  one  age  such  men  as  Charles  II.  and  James  11.,^ 
in    another,    Frederick   Schlegel,  in   another,    Newman 

^  Whatever  value  may  be  attached  to  the  opinions  of  our  last  two  Stuart 
kings,  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  their  conversion  was  the  result  of  conviction, 
any  more  than,  on  the  other  hand,  we  can  doubt  that  had  they  never  joined 
the  Church  of  Rome,  they  would  have  been  better  kings  and  better  men. 

Q 


242     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

and  Manning,  pass  over  from  what  Newman  once 
called  "  the  city  of  confusion  and  the  house  of  bond- 
age," into  what  they  fondly  presume  to  be  a  haven 
of  security  and  peace.  The  Tractarian  movement 
has  undoubtedly  strengthened  the  Roman  communion 
in  this  country  as  much  as  it  has  strengthened  our 
own.  The  Ultramontanes  are  never  weary  of  predict- 
ing that  it  will  ultimately  bring  about  the  submission 
of  England  to  the  Pope.  And  no  doubt  there  is  a 
constant  "  oozing  over  to  Rome,"  to  adopt  an  expression 
used  to  me  years  ago  by  one  of  the  most  able  and 
original  of  the  Tractarian  clergy,  from  the  extreme 
right  among  ourselves.  Such  considerations  as  these 
lead  many  to  imagine  that  Rome  is  destined  to  regain 
the  ground  she  has  lost,  and  when  skilfully  urged,  they 
are  not  unfrequently  successful  in  inducing  superficial 
reasoners  to  join  her.  But  there  is  another  side  to  the 
picture.  The  Church  of  Rome  is  by  no  means  the 
happy  family  she  is  represented  to  outsiders  as  being. 
There  has  long  been  a  restless  dissatisfaction  among  the 
best  and  wisest  of  her  members  with  things  as  they  are, 
which  must  in  the  end  produce  its  effect  ;  and  her 
secret  history  has  long  been  one  of  perpetual  bicker- 
ings and  strife.  As  long  as  heretics  could  be  burned 
and  imprisoned,  the  task  of  '*  an  insolent  and  aggressive 
faction,"  as  Newman  once  termed  the  body  which 
directs  the  movements  of  the  Vatican,  was  easy 
enough.  But  it  is  by  no  means  so  easy,  in  these  days 
of  general  toleration,  to  suppress  opinion  by  weapons 
purely  spiritual.  From  the  days  of  Arnold  of  Brescia, 
of  Savonarola,  of  Wyclif,  of  John  Huss,  and  Jerome  of 
Prague,  to  say  nothing  of  the  Reformation,  there  have 
been  signs,  within  the  pale  of  the  Roman  communion 


ROMANISM  SINCE  THE  REFORMATION  243 

itself,  of  dissatisfaction  with  her  doctrine  and  discipHne, 
and  in  the  present  century  these  signs  have  been  ex- 
tremely frequent.      In  France  the  recoil  from  the  Con- 
cordat established  by  Napoleon  with  the  Pope,  led  to  a 
re-condescence  of  the  old  Jansenist  and  Gallican  spirit. 
Thirty-six  bishops  refused  to  accept  the  Concordat,  and 
died   without    having  done   so.     Only,  unlike   the  Old 
Catholics   in   Holland,   they   refused   to  perpetuate  the 
schism.     Yet  the  spirit  remained,  even  when  not  only 
the  bishops  but  the  priests  died  out  one  by  one  ;  and 
at   the  present  moment   it   is   reckoned  that  there  are 
about  10,000  persons  in  various  parts  of  France  who 
refuse  to  attend  Roman  Catholic  worship.     They  call 
themselves  the  Petite  Eglise.    They  have  neither  priest  nor 
church.     But  the  works  of  the  divines  of  Port  Royal 
are  handed    down   among  them  as   the  most  precious 
treasures,    and    they   remain   to   this   day   firm    to    the 
doctrines  which  the  Jesuits  imagined  they  had  extirpated 
in  the  eighteenth  century.-^    The  Pope  lately  addressed  an 
appeal  to  them  to  return  to  communion  with  the  chair 
of  St.  Peter,  but  it  fell  upon  deaf  ears.     Some  of  them 
have  asked  for  religious  privileges  from  the  Old  Catholic 
congregation   at   Paris,   which   is  practically  a   mission 
from  the  Old  Catholic  Church   in    Holland,  itself  the 
ecclesiastical   heir   of  Janssen   and  the    Port   Royalists. 
Others  still  remain  "  as  sheep  without  a  shepherd."      In 
Germany,  too,  the  spirit  of  discontent  has  found  expres- 
sion.    The  celebrated  Hirscher,  better  known  than  at 
present  to  us  English  some  two  generations  back,  through 
the  translation  of  his  work  under  the  title  "  Sympathies  of 
the  Continent,"  by  the  late  Bishop  Cleveland  Coxe,  strove, 

^  M.  Leon  Seche  has  lately  written  an  account  of  this  most  interesting 
■community. 


244     THE    CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

in  the  early  part  of  the  present  century,  to  press  reform 
upon  his  ecclesiastical  superiors.  He  defended  the  aboli- 
tion of  the  rule  of  celibacy  for  the  clergy,  recommended 
that  the  services  of  the  Church  should  be  conducted  in  the 
vernacular,  and  pleaded  for  the  reform  of  sundry  abuses 
connected  with  indulgences,  confession,  and  the  worship 
of  the  Virgin  and  the  Saints.^  Sailer,  too,  afterwards 
Bishop  of  Ratisbon,  advocated  the  reforms  which  the 
Old  Catholics  afterwards  carried  out,  after  their  final 
separation  from  the  Pope. 

The  story  of  Wessemburg,  Coadjutor-Bishop  of 
Constance,  deserves,  perhaps,  to  be  told  at  greater 
length.  He  was  chosen  as  coadjutor  to  the  celebrated 
Dalbey  in  1802,  in  consequence  of  his  having  recom- 
mended himself  to  the  Vatican,  as  well  as  to  Dalbey 
himself,  by  his  successful  discharge  of  a  mission  to 
Switzerland,  with  which  he  had  been  entrusted.  His 
delegated  authority  extended  over  parts  of  Switzerland, 
as  well  as  of  the  Grand  Duchy  of  Baden.  As  soon  as 
he  entered  upon  his  duties  he  laboured  might  and  main 
for  a  reform  in  the  condition  of  the  clergy  and  the 
Church.  He  found  the  clergy  uneducated  and  unfitted 
for  their  office,  a  defect  which  he  strove  at  once  to 
remedy.  He  reformed  the  Theological  Seminary,  and 
strove  to  improve  the  education  the  candidates  for 
Orders  received  before  they  entered  it.  He  endeavoured 
to  introduce  services  in  the  vernacular  and  the  know- 
ledge of  the  Bible,  as  well  as  to  improve  the  musical 
portion  of  the  Church  services.  He  next  laboured  to 
impart   a   more   democratic    character    to    the   Church 

^  A  full  account  of  Hirscher  as  a  theologian  and  reformer,  by  Dr.  Lauchert, 
will  be  found  in  the  Revue  Internationale  de  Theologie,  Oct.  1894,  April  and 
Oct.  1895,  and  Jan.  1896.  He  was  a  voluminous  writer  himself,  and  the 
subject  of  many  biographical  and  theological  writings. 


ROMANISM  SINCE  THE  REFORMATION  245 

organisation  in  the  diocese.  He  advocated  self-govern- 
ment in  the  place  of  government  from  Rome,  as  well  as 
the  right  of  the  laity  to  be  consulted  in  the  management 
of  Church  affairs,  and  in  the  choice  of  their  pastors. 
This  brought  the  long- suppressed  indignation  of  the 
Jesuit  party  to  a  head.  On  the  death  of  Dalbey,  in  1817, 
Wessemburg  was  chosen  by  the  Chapter  of  Constance 
to  succeed  him.  The  Vatican  replied  by  requesting 
that  a  man  of  better  report  should  be  chosen.  Wessem- 
burg, in  spite  of  the  remonstrances  of  his  friends,  set 
off  to  Rome  to  plead  his  own  cause,  and  tedious  and 
protracted  were  the  arguments  and  intrigues  which 
followed.  His  Roman  experiences,  like  those  of 
Lamennais  after  him,  have  been  made  familiar  to  us  of 
late  in  the  pages  of  Zola's  "  Rome."  Wessemburg,  like 
others,  found  it  impossible  to  make  any  impression  on 
the  Pope  and  his  entourage.  Submission,  and  submission 
only,  was  the  course  required  of  him.  After  six  months 
he  left  Rome,  saying  ''  I  breathe  more  freely  now  I 
have  escaped  from  that  atmosphere."  ^  "  The  uncondi- 
tional power  of  the  Pope,"  said  Wessemburg  of  the 
"  Romlingseele,"  "  is  their  idol."  The  Pope  steadily  re- 
fused to  allow  him  to  become  Bishop  of  Constance  ;  and 
when,  after  some  negotiations,  the  seat  of  the  Bishopric 
was  transferred  to  Freiburg,  the  Vaticanists  contrived  to 
induce  the  Grand  Duke  Ludwig  to  nominate  some  one 
else  in  Wessemburg's  place.  The  story  of  Wessem- 
burg's  Hfe  is  narrated  in  glowing  terms  by  Dr.  Beck,  a 
member  of  the  Council  of  the  Duchy  of  Baden,  who 
calls  him  the  courageous  pioneer  and  worthy  leader  of 

^  Some  may  be  reminded  by  this  of  Dr.  Newman's  memorable  observa- 
tion, when  the  intrigues  against  him  at  Rome  were  at  their  height,  and  when 
it  was  reported  that  he  was  about  to  repair  thither,  that  "  the  atmosphere  of 
Rome  did  not  agree  with  his  constitution." 


246     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

the  reform  party  of  the  Cathohc  confession  among  his 
people.  He  survived  till  i860,  and  after  nearly  forty 
years  his  memory  is  still  held  in  honour.  A  Swiss 
friend  of  my  own,  who,  while  he  lived,  was  among 
the  most  energetic  and  enlightened  of  the  old  Catholic 
laity,  but  who  has  lately,  alas  !  been  taken  from  us,^ 
told  me,  how  in  1863,  seven  years  before  the  Vatican 
Council,  his  first  act,  when  he  went  as  a  young 
gymnasiast  to  Constance,  was  to  go  to  the  Cathedral 
and  visit  Wessemburg's  grave.  "  So  highly,"  he  added, 
"  was  the  character  of  this  man  honoured  in  the  non- 
Ultramontane  circles  of  the  Catholic  Church." 

At  a  still  later  period,  Leopold  Schmidt,  formally 
elected  to  the  Bishopric  of  Mainz  in  1849,  an  era 
of  storm  and  revolution  in  Europe,  was  opposed  by 
the  Jesuits  for  his  supposed  Protestantising  tendencies. 
They  procured  his  rejection  from  the  Pope,  and  in- 
duced the  Pope  to  nominate  the  well-known  Von 
Ketteler  in  his  place.  Their  intrigues  drove  Schmidt, 
mild,  gentle,  and  inoffensive  as  had  been  his  life,  to 
renounce  communion  with  the  Roman  Church  as  in- 
tolerant and  Ultramontane  ;  while  he  still  maintained 
that  he  was  not  a  Protestant,  but  a  Catholic.  Augustin 
Theiner,  again,  the  Librarian  of  the  Vatican,  held  his 
post  amid  ever  increasing  misgivings.  His  book  on 
Clement  XIV.,  the  suppressor  of  the  Jesuits,  was  put  at 
once  on  the  Index.  His  work  on  the  Council  of  Trent 
was  stopped.  At  last,  in  1870,  he  was  turned  out  of 
his  office  on  account  of  his  persistent  opposition  to  the 
Vatican  decrees.^ 

1  Dr.  Weibel. 

^  Since  the  Vatican  Council  Professor  Reusch,  one  of  the  Reforming 
Party,  in  his  Die  Deutschen  Bischofe  and  der  Aberglanbe,  has  called  attention 
to  the  increase  of  superstitions  connected  with  Purgatory,  the  use  of  scapulars 


ROMANISM  SINCE  THE  REFORMATION  247 

In  Italy  the  same  reforming  spirit  showed  itself, 
though  amid  great  dangers  and  difficulties.  The  cele- 
brated Rosmini,  a  philosophical  theologian  of  high 
repute  in  the  Roman  communion,  published,  in  1849, 
a  work  called  the  "  Five  Wounds  of  the  Church,"  ^  in 
which  he  boldly  and  honestly  laid  bare  the  evils  which 
afflicted  the  communion  to  which  he  belonged.  The 
Jesuits  laboured  hard  to  obtain  a  condemnation  of  this 
book,  but  only  partially  succeeded,  and  Rosmini  died 
in  the  communion  of  the  Church  he  had  in  vain  en- 
deavoured to  reform.  Gioberti,  about  thirty  years  pre- 
viously, had  written  a  treatise  on  "  Catholic  Reform  in 
the  Church."  But  this  simply  consisted  in  h.s  recom- 
mendation of  a  more  philosophical  system  of  Church 
teaching,  in  which  the  sharp  angles  of  dogma  were 
to  be  rubbed  off,  and  an  exaggerated  asceticism 
toned  down.  The  case  of  Father  Passaglia  also 
deserves  notice.  The  hero  of  the  proclamation  of  the 
dogma  of  the  Immaculate  Conception  of  the  Blessed 
Virgin  in  1854,  he  was  the  principal  figure  in  a 
picture  painted  to  commemorate  that  event.  But 
as  he  afterwards  put  himself  at  the  head  of  9000  priests 
who  protested  against  the  temporal  power  of  the  Pope, 
he  fell  into  disgrace,  and  his  likeness  was  removed  from 
the  picture  in  which  it  had  occupied  the  most  pro- 
minent place.  Monsignore  Tiboni,  Canon  of  Brescia, 
about  the  same  time  advocated  the  translation  and  free 
reading  of  the  Scriptures,  services  in  the  vernacular, 
the  Holy  Communion  in  both  kinds,  confession  made 

and  blessed  wonder-working  medals,  and  has  appealed  to  the  Roman  bishops 
to  put  a  stop  to  it,  but  of  course  in  vain. 

1  The  five  wounds  of  the  Church  are — i.  Worship  in  an  unknown  tongue; 
2.  The  ignorance  of  the  clergy;  3.  The  despotism  of  the  bishops;  4.  The  ap- 
pointing of  bishops  by  the  State;  5.  The  State  control  of  Church  property. 


248     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

voluntary,  and  the  abolition  of  enforced  clerical  celi- 
bacy, as  well  as  the  abolition  of  the  autocracy  of  the 
Pope.  Audisio  was  another  priest  of  reforming  senti- 
ments, and  cautious  as  was  his  avowal  of  them,  he  did 
not  escape  the  usual  denunciation,  from  the  conse- 
quences of  which  he  freed  himself  by  declaring  that 
he  had  never  said,  nor  wished  to  say,  anything  contrary 
to  the  authority  of  the  Pope  and  the  Church.  When 
Count  Campello  actually  seceded  from  the  Roman  Church 
in  1 88 1  in  order  to  devote  himself  to  the  unfettered 
prosecution  of  the  work  of  reform,  Audisio,  while  wish- 
ing him  God  speed,  excused  himself  from  following  him 
on  the  ground  of  his  age.  The  two  most  prominent 
opponents,  however,  of  the  Vatican  in  late  years  were 
Cardinal  d' Andrea  and  Padre  Curci.  The  former  placed 
himself  at  the  head  of  the  movement  for  an  Italian 
Catholic  Reformed  Church  in  Southern  Italy,  and  was 
followed  by  three  hundred  priests.  After  some  contro- 
versy, d' Andrea,  contrary  to  the  advice  of  his  friends, 
accepted  an  invitation  from  the  Vatican  to  discuss  the 
question  with  the  Pope.  This  was  in  May  1866.  Im- 
mediately afterwards  he  died  so  suddenly  that  Cardinal 
Antonelli  was  compelled  to  acquiesce  in  a  post-mortem 
investigation.  No  cause  of  death  was  assigned,  but  the 
immediate  realisation  of  the  forebodings  of  his  friends 
has  been  held  by  many  unprejudiced  persons  to  justify 
the  suspicion  that  he  was  poisoned.^  Baron  Ricasoli, 
the  Italian  Prime  Minister  at  that  juncture,  not  seeing 
the  importance  of  the  movement  which  d'Andrea  had 
inaugurated,   delivered  the   three  hundred  priests   into 

^  Dr.  Beck,  in  his  Freiherr  lieinrich  von  Wessemburg,  Sein  Leben  und 
Wirken,  p.  277,  says  of  Wessemburg's  journey  to  Rome  in  181 7,  "  Viele  furch- 
teten — und  bei  dem  todtlichen  Hass  der  Partei,  und  der  damaligen  Zeitlage, 
nicht  ganz  ohne  Grund — fiir  die  personliche  Sicherheit  des  Freundes." 


ROMANISM  SINCE  THE  REFORMATION  249 

the  hands  of  their  bishops.  They  were  one  by  one 
starved  into  submission,  and  thus  ended  a  bold  and 
promising  attempt  at  Reform  in  the  ItaHan  Church. 
Curci's  case  is  also  remarkable.  Himself  a  Jesuit,  he 
became  discontented  with  the  policy  of  his  order.  In 
two  powerful  books.  La  Nuova  Italia  ed  i  Vecchi  Zelanti^ 
and  //  Vaticano  Regio,  the  first  published  in  1881,  the 
second  shortly  afterwards,  he  painted  in  strong  terms 
the  miserable  condition  of  his  communion  in  Italy,  the 
fanaticism,  the  intrigue,  the  party  spirit  at  work  in  it, 
the  ignorance  and  worthlessness  of  the  great  majority 
of  the  clergy,  and  especially  the  neglect  of  the  study  of 
Holy  Scripture,  a  neglect  he  strove  to  remedy  by  pub- 
lishing a  Commentary  on  the  Bible.  But  his  works  were 
speedily  condemned  ;  the  Jesuits  laboured  incessantly 
to  effect  his  overthrow,  and,  after  a  noble  and  vigorous 
resistance,  the  old  man  (Curci  was  over  seventy)  was 
effectually  starved  out  and  silenced. 

If  we  turn  once  more  to  France,  the  same  spectacle 
awaits  us.  I  have  already  referred  to  the  history  of  the 
Petite  £glise.  I  proceed  to  further  manifestations  of  the 
same  spirit.  Like  Grosseteste  in  the  thirteenth  century, 
Lamennais  in  the  nineteenth  commenced  his  career  as 
a  devout  believer  in  the  Papacy.  As  in  Grosseteste's 
case,  the  severe  logic  of  facts  compelled  Lamennais  to 
change  his  mind.  In  his  Essai  sur  VIndifference  en 
matiere  de  Religion,  he  gave  the  warmest  expression  to 
his  earlier  belief.  Pursued  by  Jesuit  opposition,  by 
jealousy  and  intrigue,  as  he  strove  to  develop  a  policy 
which  he  believed  would  reconcile  his  Church  and 
nation,  he  found  his  idol  shattered  in  his  grasp.  In 
vain  did  he  go  to  Rome  and  appeal  to  the  Pope 
(Gregory  XVI.)  personally.       In  his  last  interview  the 


2  50     THE    CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

wily  Italian,  so  SpuUer  tells  us,  did  but  enlarge  on  the 
talents  of  Michael  Angelo,  and  offer  the  enthusiastic 
reformer  a  box  of  lapis  lazuli^  containing  some  of  the 
Pope's  best  snuff.  Disgusted  with  the  idol  he  had  once 
adored,  in  his  Paroles  d'un  Croyant  he  gave  vent  to  his 
disappointment  and  despair.  Together  with  Montalem- 
bert  and  Lacordaire,  whose  youthful  enthusiasm,  like 
that  of  Lamennais,  had  seen  in  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church,  with  the  Pope  at  its  head,  the  only  hope  of 
regenerating  society,  he  started  L'Avenir,  a  journal 
devoted  to  the  interests  of  religion.  But  in  the 
Encyclical  Mirari  Vos  the  principles  advocated  in  this 
journal  were  condemned.  Its  issue  was  suspended. 
Lamennais  retired  into  silence,  solitude,  and  as 
his  enemies  asserted,  into  scepticism.  His  com- 
rades in  the  work  ended  their  lives  under  a  more  or 
less  thick  cloud  of  censure  and  reproach.  And  so 
pilgrimages  to  Lourdes  and  the  like  take  the  place  of 
rational  religion,  new  cults  supplant  the  worship  of  God, 
the  clergy  grow  more  ignorant  and  fanatical,  and  in 
many  villages  the  Church  is  unable  to  supply  any 
clergy  at  all.^ 

The  Roman  Church  then,  in  various  lands,  has  long 
presented  the  aspect  of  a  sea  which,  though  smooth  appar- 
ently on  the  surface,  is  heaving  and  struggling  beneath 
that  surface  with  the  ground-swell  of  suppressed  emotions. 
The  ablest  spirits  of  the  ruling  faction  within  her  pale 
were  not  insensible  of  the  dangers  which  environed  her. 
And  they  jumped  to  the  conclusion  that  the  best  way  to 
repress  rebellion  within,  and  to  confound  their  enemies 

These  facts  are  vouched  for  by  the  Abbe  Bougaud  in  a  work  called 

Le  Grand  Peril  de  t £glise  de  France.      Mgr.   Dupanloup,  Archbishop  of 

Lyons,  also  published  a  pamphlet  in  1876,  entitled  Ou  allons  nous,  speaking 
of  the  unsatisfactory  state  of  things  among  the  laity. 


ROMANISM  SINCE  THE  REFORMATION  251 

without,  was  to  put  the  capstone  on  the  monarchical 
system  of  the  Church  by  the  proclamation  of  Papal 
infallibility.  Of  this  policy  Manning  was  the  most 
persistent  and  determined  supporter.  He  believed  he 
saw  in  it  a  weapon  with  which  recalcitrants  within  could 
instantly  be  crushed,  and  a  means  by  which  those 
without  who  were  wont  to  taunt  their  Roman  Catholic 
antagonists  with  having  indeed  an  infallible  Church, 
but  as  being  unable  to  define  where  the  infallibility 
resided,  could  effectually  be  silenced.  The  risks  were 
unquestionably  great.  The  opposition  was  bold, 
numerous,  and  intelligent,  even  among  the  bishops 
who  were  present  at  the  Council,  and  the  three  Munich 
Professors,  Dollinger,  Huber,  and  Friedrich,  supported 
by  a  host  of  other  learned  men  in  Germany  and  else- 
where, had  organised  a  most  formidable  resistance. 
On  this,  however,  as  on  other  occasions,  courage  and 
determination  triumphed  over  all  obstacles.  The  poHcy 
of  the  promoters  of  the  Council  was  resolutely  and  not 
too  scrupulously  carried  out.  One  by  one  the  protesting 
bishops  gave  in  their  submission,  and  at  length  all 
fear  of  an  organised  Episcopal  revolt  was  at  an  end. 
The  rebellious  German  and  Swiss  Professors  were 
excommunicated,  and  the  establishment  of  a  Papal 
monarchy  over  the  Roman  Church  was  a  fait  accompli. 
The  success  of  Manning  and  his  party,  however, 
though  almost  beyond  expectation,  was  not  quite  com- 
plete. A  movement,  which,  though  small  in  its 
beginnings,  has  been  already  not  unfruitful  in  results, 
was  initiated  in  opposition  to  the  sentence  of  the 
Council.  The  ferment,  which  at  first  was  great,  rapidly 
subsided,  and  those  who  finally  determined  on  an 
organised  resistance  to  the  new  ecclesiastical  despotism 


252     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

were  few  indeed.  Dollinger  himself,  though  he  could 
not  bring  himself  to  discountenance  this  resistance,  did 
not  feel  at  liberty  to  give  it  his  active  support.  Never- 
theless the  small  band  of  resolute  opponents,  headed  by 
Reinkens,  Reusch,  and  Von  Schulte,  determined  to 
proceed.  The  bishops  of  the  Old  Catholic  Church  of 
Holland,  the  history  of  which  has  been  narrated  above, 
offered  to  consecrate  a  bishop,  and  Reinkens  was  ulti- 
mately consecrated  to  the  charge  of  some  fifty  thousand 
souls  in  Germany,  who  were  resolved  as  Catholics  to 
have  religious  privileges  for  themselves  and  their  families. 
The  Papal  excommunication,  it  should  be  understood, 
involved  the  denial  of  all  Church  rites  to  those  who 
came  under  its  ban.  Reinkens  consecrated  Herzog  to 
preside  over  about  the  same  number  of  dissidents  in 
Switzerland.  Thus  was  what  is  known  as  the  Old 
Catholic  movement  inaugurated  —  the  first  attempt 
since  the  Reformation  at  organised  resistance  to  Rome. 
Among  the  fickle  and  volatile  French  Old  Catholicism 
never  took  any  root.  In  spite  of  the  strenuous  exertions 
of  M.  Hyacinthe  Loyson,  one  congregation  only,  at 
Paris,  has  been  brought  into  existence  to  maintain  Old 
Catholic  principles.  It  is  now  under  the  supervision  of 
the  Old  Catholic  bishops  of  Holland.  In  Austria,  on 
the  contrary,  the  movement  has  made  rapid  and  in- 
creasing progress,^  and  is  only  prevented  by  the  intoler- 
ance of  the  Austrian  Government  from  having  a  bishop 
of  its  own.  In  Italy,  Count  Campello,  once  Canon  of 
St.  Peter's  at  Rome,  has  been  struggling  manfully  since 
1 88 1,  and  not  altogether  unsuccessfully,  to  form  an 
Italian  Catholic  Church,  and  Professor  Miraglia,  who  has 
lately  initiated  an  independent  movement  of  his  own  at 

^  Especially  during  the  present  year  (1S99). 


ROMANISM  SINCE  THE  REFORMATION  253 

Piacenza,  has  also,  towards  the  close  of  the  year  1897, 
announced  his  accession  to  the  Old  Catholic  body.^ 
The  consecration  of  a  sixth  Old  Catholic  bishop  for  an 
Independent  Church  of  the  Poles  in  America,  at  the 
beginning  of  this  year,  has  extended  the  movement  as 
far  as  the  United  States.  The  immediate  result  of  the 
formation  of  Old  Catholic  communities  was  the  carrying 
out,  as  far  as  their  members  were  concerned,  of  the 
reforms  which  earnest  men  in  the  Roman  Catholic 
communities  had  so  long  desired.  The  Old  Catholic 
Churches  lost  no  time  in  repudiating  the  decrees  of  a 
purely  Western  Council  such  as  Trent,  and  recurred  to 
the  voice  of  the  undivided  Church.  The  prayers  were 
said  in  the  vernacular  ;  the  free  reading  of  the  Bible 
was  permitted  ;  confession  was  made  optional  ;  the 
voice  of  the  laity  forced  on  a  somewhat  reluctant 
clergy  the  permission  of  marriage  to  the  members  of 
the  clerical  order,  and  the  modern  cults,  the  excessive 
veneration  paid  to  the  Virgin,  and  the  abuses  con- 
nected with  private  masses,  purgatory,  and  indulgences 
were  done  away  with.  The  election  of  priests  by  their 
congregations,  and  the  free  participation  of  the  laity  in 
Church  Government,  are  among  the  most  prominent  fea- 
tures of  the  system,  and  it  is  on  the  intelligent  co-opera- 
tion of  its  laity  that  the  Old  Catholic  cause  mainly 
reposes.  Of  course,  too,  the  incubus  of  the  Index  has 
been  removed,  and  the  clergy  permitted  freely  to  speak 
their  mind  on  all  points  not  formally  decided  by  the 
Universal  Church.  It  is  yet  too  early  to  estimate  the 
effect  such  a  bold  step  as  the  Old  Catholics  have  taken 
is  likely  to  produce.     The  number  of  those  who  dared 

^  Protestantism,  some  years  ago,  under  the  eloquent  Gavazzi,  made  much 
progress.  But  it  has  lost  much  ground  since  by  its  internal  and  external 
dissensions. 


2  54     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

adopt  an  attitude  so  unprecedented  as  that  of  resistance 
to  the  Head  of  the  Church  was  no  doubt  at  first  almost 
infinitesimal.  But,  small  as  it  was,  neither  persecution, 
abuse,  bribery,  social  or  political  pressure,  nor  persua- 
sion— and  all  have  been  freely  and  unscrupulously  used 
by  the  Ultramontanes — have  availed  to  put  the  Old 
Catholics  down.  They  have  survived  the  indifference, 
the  jealousy,  the  hostility  of  Romanism,  of  Protestantism, 
and  of  the  civil  government  alike.  They  have  faced  the 
difficulties  of  organisation,  and  these  were  considerable ; 
but  their  publications  are  slowly  and  surely  leavening 
the  mind  of  Europe  ;  no  fear  of  the  Index  disturbs  their 
freedom  of  speech  ;  and  their  Churches  are  making 
steady,  if  slow  progress.  Their  negotiations  for  union 
with  the  Orthodox  Churches  of  the  East  are  consider- 
ably advanced.  Their  relations  with  the  Anglican  com- 
munion would  be  most  cordial  if  it  were  possible  to 
induce  Anglicans  to  take  the  slightest  interest  in  them. 
Even  now  Anglicans  are  freely  admitted  to  communion 
in  their  Churches.  As  to  their  protest  against  Rome,  it 
cannot  be  silenced,  as  the  previous  movements  already 
recorded  have  been  silenced.  Weekly  in  their  pulpits, 
and  in  their  organs  in  the  press,  is  that  protest  being 
made,  and  it  is  steadily  increasing  in  volume  and  in 
effect.  The  continual  affirmation  of  the  fact  that 
Vaticanism  is  not  Catholicism,  but  the  most  grotesque 
perversion  imaginable  of  Catholicism,  cannot  possibly 
be  without  result.  But  perhaps  the  greatest  service 
Old  Catholicism  is  rendering  to  Christendom,  and  the 
most  serious  injury  it  is  inflicting  on  the  Church  of 
Rome,  is  the  policy  which  has  instituted  Reunion 
Conferences,  to  which  all  Christians  are  freely  invited, 
and  to  which   all    but   Roman   Catholics   and    extreme 


ROMANISM  SINCE  THE  REFORMATION   255 

Protestants  freely  resort,  and  which  has  estabhshed 
the  Revue  Internationale  de  Theologie,  in  which  all  com- 
petent persons  desirous  of  reunion  are  invited  freely 
to  discuss  the  points  of  difference  between  the  various 
Churches.^ 

Englishmen  may  be  inclined  to  wonder  at  the 
smallness  of  the  results  obtained  so  far  by  the  Old 
CathoHcs.  Those  who  are  well  acquainted  with  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  will  be  inclined  to  wonder  that 
they  are  not  smaller.  The  condition  of  helplessness 
and  indifference  to  which  the  Roman  Catholic  system 
has  reduced  most  men  who  outwardly  conform  to 
that  Church,  can  scarcely  be  imagined  by  an  outsider. 
Lamennais,  in  1837,  had  prophesied  the  birth  of  such 
a  movement,  and  he  added  the  following  remarkable 
words  :  "  It  will  be  at  first  like  a  point  one  hardly  per- 
ceives, a  small  aggregation  at  which  possibly  people 
will  laugh.  But  that  point  will  expand,  that  aggrega- 
tion will  spread.  From  all  parts  people  will  flow  to 
it,  because  it  will  be  a  refuge  to  all  who  suffer."  A 
French  Abbe,  writing  on  Old  Catholicism  in  the  Revue 
Internationale  de  The'ologie  for  January  1898,  speaks  of 
the  "indifference  of  the  esprits  biases  by  Popery  and 
Voltairianism."  He  adds,  and  he  is  not  alone  in 
adding,  "  Mais  il  finira  par  triompher."  It  is  at  least 
the  only  body  on  the  Continent  which  retains  the 
organisation  on  which  Roman  Catholics  set  such  store. 

Thus  a  general  view  of  the  relative  positions  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  body  and  other  communions  displays 
the  former  as  gradually,  though  very  slowly,  losing 
ground.  Where  Rome  was  able  to  make  use  of 
despotic  authority  to  crush  freedom  of  thought,  for  the 

^  This  serial  admits  articles  in  French,  German,  and  English. 


256     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

time  she  bore  down  all  opposition.  But  since  she  lost 
the  support  of  the  civil  government,  her  task  has 
become  immeasurably  harder.  First  and  foremost,  the 
control  of  education  has  slipped  from  her  hands/  Then 
the  influence  of  the  nations  which  lent  themselves  to 
her  policy  has  steadily  declined  in  Europe,  while  those 
which  adopted  the  principles  of  the  Reformation  have 
as  steadily  advanced  to  supremacy.  France,  the 
country  on  which  her  system  had  a  hold  for  the 
shortest  time,  shook  herself  fiercely  free  from  Roman 
domination  at  the  Revolution,  and  has  never  in  reality 
been  a  "  Catholic,"  scarcely  even  a  Christian  nation 
since.  Nor  is  Rom.e  able  to  maintain  her  hold,  even 
on  her  own  adherents.  In  Germany  the  Lutheran 
Church  steadily  gains  on  her  Roman  antagonist. 
Within  the  last  few  months  thirty  priests  have  left  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  in  France,  including  the  Abbe 
Charbonnel  and  the  Abbe  Philippot,  men  of  mark  in 
their  communion,  and  the  Abbe  Bourrier,  the  leader 
of  the  movement,  has  established  a  journal,  Le  Chretien 
Fran^ais,  to  record  its  progress.^  Italy,  by  her  ad- 
herence to  the  House  of  Savoy,  and  her  determination 
to  become  once  more  a  country,  is  at  daggers  drawn 
with  the  Vatican,  and  derives  what  national  spirit  she 
has  from  that  very  fact.  Spain  and  Portugal  have  ceased 
to  be  of  any  account  in  the  councils  of  nations.  Their 
dominions  have  been  dismembered  already,  and  the 
former  has  just  been  dismembered  once  more.     Austria 

^  Theiner,  the  Librarian  of  the  Vatican  mentioned  above,  writes  to 
Dbllinger  in  a  letter,  dated  April  28,  1867,  "The  Protestants  are  the  sole 
masters  in  this  field  [education].  And  this  because  the  Jesuits  were  in 
exclusive  possession  of  education,  and  crammed  us  only  with  their  wretched 
dog  Latin,  so  that  we  understood  neither  Latin  nor  German." 

^  The  effect  of  the  Dreyfus  case  has  been  largely  to  increase  M.  Bourrier's 
following. 


ROMANISM  SINCE  THE  REFORMATION  257 

engaged  in  a  duel  with  Prussia  for  the  hegemony  of 
Germany,  and  was  signally  worsted  in  the  conflict. 
The  Vatican  did  its  best  to  stir  up  strife  between  France^ 
at  that  time  under  Roman  Catholic  influences,  and 
Prussia,  a  Protestant  kingdom,  whose  progress  as  such 
the  Vatican  feared,  and  was  resolved  if  possible  to 
prevent.  The  struggle  took  place,  France  was  hope- 
lessly worsted,  and  William  I.,  the  Protestant  King 
of  Prussia,  became  Emperor  of  Germany.^  Thus 
Vatican  intrigues  succeeded  in  placing  the  ascendency 
in  Germany  in  the  very  hands  from  which  it  had 
hoped  to  wrest  them.  If  we  confine  our  glance  to 
Europe,  we  find  no  Roman  Catholic  power  holding  a 
commanding  position.  Austria  seems  almost  on  the 
point  of  dissolution.  France  is  rather  an  infidel  than  a 
Christian  country.  Germany  on  the  whole  is  Pro- 
testant, Russia  Orthodox.  In  the  British  Isles,  the 
Roman  Catholics,  at  the  beginning  of  the  century 
about  one-fourth,  are  now  not  more  than  a  seventh  of 
the  population.  If  we  endeavour  to  forecast  the 
probable  future  of  the  world,  three  powers  stand  out 
above  all  others  as  the  great  powers  of  the  future. 
They  are  England,  Russia,  and  the  United  States. 
None  of  these  profess  any  allegiance  to  the  Holy  See. 
Nor,  in  spite  of  the  able  and  almost  superhuman  efforts 
of  the  Vatican  to  extend,  or  at  least  to  retain,  its  influ- 
ence, do  those  efforts  seem  to  produce  much  result.  It  has 
always  been  its  policy  to  obtain  temporal  supremacy, 
and  a  promising  Mission  came  to  nought  in  Japan,  chiefly 
because   the  missionaries  followed   the   vicious  Roman 


^  M.  Hoffet,  in  an  article  in  the  Revue  Internationale  de  Thiologie,  April 
1898,  p.  403,  remarks  on  the  unification  of  German  Protestantism  brought 
about  by  the  unification  of  Germany. 

R 


258     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

custom  of  interfering  in  the  civil  politics  of  the  country. 
In  the  effort  to  obtain   a  tangible  authority,  instead  of 
simply  endeavouring  to  leaven  religious  thought,  it  has 
in  various  countries  allied  itself  with  influences  the  most 
antagonistic.       Imperialism  or   Legitimism    in    France, 
Socialism    and    Republicanism    in   Ireland,  Carlism  in 
Spain,   have   been   employed   to   strengthen    Papal   in- 
fluence, and  to  obtain  supremacy  in  the  United  States, 
the    "Catholic    elector"    has    not    scrupled    to     enter 
into  close  relations  with  the  notorious  Tammany  Hall. 
The   loss   of  the  temporal   power,  which    the    Papacy 
struggled  so  desperately  to  retain,  has  proved  an  ad- 
vantage in  carrying  out  this  policy,  because  the  Vatican 
has  been  able  to  give  its  undivided  attention  to  it,  un- 
hampered by  the  cares  and  political  entanglements  of 
civil  government.    Another  advantage  of  which  it  avails 
itself  to  the  utmost  in  Roman  Catholic  countries  is  the 
recent  wide  extension  of  the  suffrage  throughout  Europe. 
Political  power  is  placed  thereby  in  the  hands  of  the 
most  ignorant  classes.     It  is  precisely  these  over  which 
Rome  has  the  most  control.     Consequently,  in  Roman 
Catholic  countries  there  are  continual  clerical  reactions 
of  a  very  dangerous  kind.     To  promote  these  reactions, 
the  Vaticanists   do   not  scruple  to  resort  to  the  most 
unscrupulous  tactics.      This  very  year  the  question  of 
the  acquisition  of  the  Swiss  railways  by  the  State  has 
been  taken  up  by  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  for  her 
own  purposes.       Railways   promote  the  circulation  of 
intelligent  opinion  ;  therefore  the  increase  of  railways 
in  Switzerland  is  eminently  undesirable  in  the  eyes  of 
the  Vatican  faction,  and  the  most  ignorant  and  back- 
ward of  the  Swiss  cantons  voted  solid  against  the  pro- 
position, though  it  was  supported  by  all  the  cantons. 


ROMANISM  SINCE  THE  REFORMATION  259 

Roman  Catholic  or  Protestant,  where  intelHgence  and 
manufacturing  industries  are  to  be  found.  Where  Pro- 
testantism is  strong,  the  Vatican  puts  forward  its  fairest 
and  most  Hberal  aspect,  poses  as  the  friend  of  social 
order  and  the  rights  of  capital,  and  endeavours  to  secure 
Conservative  support  against  the  dangerous  tendencies 
of  modern  Liberalism.  In  dealing  with  the  infidel 
Socialist,  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  makes  capital  of 
the  very  strongly-pronounced  indifferentism  of  many 
of  her  supporters  ;  and  a  Socialist  lately  informed  an 
Old  Catholic  candidate  for  the  representation  of  Lucerne 
in  the  Swiss  Federal  Assembly,  that  he  should  prefer  to 
vote  for  the  Roman  Catholic  candidate,  assigning  as  his 
reason  that  in  voting  for  a  Roman  Catholic  he  would 
be  voting  for  a  man  with  no  definite  religious  convic- 
tions, whereas  in  voting  for  an  Old  Catholic  he  would 
be  doing  the  very  opposite.  Yet  where  Rome  has  a 
free  hand,  all  the  old  fierce  intolerance  breaks  out,  as 
fierce  as  in  the  days  when  the  Church  had  the  stake 
and  the  gibbet  at  her  command. 

Thus,  spite  of  all  this  skilful  manipulation  of  policy 
to  suit  the  particular  occasion,  the  Vatican  seems  to  be 
making  very  little,  if  any,  progress.  Clerical  reactions 
are  followed  by  Liberal  reactions.  The  most  remark- 
able of  these,  though  by  no  means  the  only  one,  is  the 
extraordinary  revulsion  of  feeling  in  Canada  last  year 
in  regard  to  the  Manitoba  schools  question,  which 
placed  Mr.  Laurier,  a  Liberal  Roman  Catholic,  in 
power.  A  serious  opposition,  headed  by  Archbishop 
Ireland,  and  supported  by  theologians  of  note,  against 
the  government  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  from 
the  Vatican,  and  in  favour  of  Home  Rule,  has  lately 
broken  out  in  the  United  States,  and  it  has  taxed  all  the 


2  6o     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

resources  of  the  Vatican,  which  has  been  compelled  to 
give  way  to  it.^  The  consecration  by  the  Old  Catholics 
last  year  of  Herr  Anton  Kozlowski,  to  preside  over 
30,000  members  of  the  "  Polish  Independent  Catholic 
Church,"  is  a  further  illustration  of  the  progress  in 
America  of  the  movement  for  ecclesiastical  Home  Rule. 
The  Roman  Church,  in  fact,  is  environed  on  all  sides 
by  difficulties  and  dangers,  and  well  may  Papal  allo- 
cutions be  full  of  complaints  and  lamentations.  She 
reminds  us  at  the  present  moment  of  those  conjurors 
who,  with  inimitable  dexterity,  balance  themselves  upon 
a  pole.  We  admire  the  dexterity  ;  but  we  do  not  fail 
to  perceive  that  a  moment's  giddiness,  a  moment's  for- 
getfulness,  might  lead  to  very  disastrous  results.  More- 
over, it  is  as  dangerous  now  as  it  was  in  the  days  of 
Bishop  Pecock  to  try  to  defend  her  system  by  argu- 
ment. The  simple  assertion  of  authority  is  felt  to  be 
far  easier,  and  far  more  consistent.  Accordingly,  the 
able  writers  and  orators  who  arise  from  time  to  time 
to  maintain  the  cause  of  Rome,  are  seen,  one  by  one, 
to  "go  down  into  silence."  Lamennais  was  con- 
demned, was  driven  from  the  Roman  communion,  and 
refused  to  see  a  priest  before  he  died.  Lacordaire 
died  out  of  favour  with  the  authorities  of  his  Church. 
Montalembert's  last  moments  were  clouded  by  oppo- 
sition and  suspicion.  That  splendid  living  orator  and 
thinker,  Pere  Hyacinthe,  whom  the  age  has  hardly 
appreciated    as    he    deserves,   was    in    difficulties    with 

^  At  one  time  Archbishop  Ireland  was  in  disgrace,  and  his  supporter 
Dr.  Keane  was  removed  from  the  headship  of  his  Seminary  at  Washington. 
Now  Archbishop  Ireland  is  in  high  favour,  and  Dr.  Keane  is  preaching  at 
Rome  and  giving  general  satisfaction.  At  least,  so  says  the  Gazette  de 
Lausanne  of  February  28,  1898.  Since  this  note  was  written,  however,  the 
Pope  has  condemned  Archbishop  Ireland  and  his  followers. 


ROMANISM  SINCE  THE  REFORMATION  261 

his  ecclesiastical  superiors  before  the  decrees  of  the 
Vatican  Council  compelled  him  to  brave  the  ex- 
communication pronounced  against  those  who  reject 
them.  Pere  Didon,  another  great  French  preacher, 
was  ordered  to  retire  and  meditate  on  his  rash  utter- 
ances in  the  seclusion  of  his  convent.  Padre  Agostino 
di  Montefeltro,  who  rather  more  than  ten  years  ago 
was  drawing  vast  crowds  to  the  churches  of  Italy, 
and  whose  addresses  were  sold  at  every  newspaper 
stall  in  the  country,  was  compelled  to  read  his  recan- 
tation in  the  pulpit,  his  voice  choked  with  tears  ;  and 
from  1889  to  the  present  moment,  nothing  more  has 
been  heard  of  him.  In  short,  Vaticanism  at  the  pre- 
sent day  must  be  described  as  an  organisation  which 
is  determined,  if  possible,  to  wield  unlimited  power 
over  the  hearts  and  consciences  of  men,  by  the  nega- 
tion of  reason  and  the  suppression  of  inconvenient 
facts. 

In  the  foregoing  observations  it  is  frankly  admitted 
that  only  the  unfavourable  side  of  the  Roman  system 
has  been  presented  to  the  reader.  It  is  not  for  a 
moment  denied  that  there  is  another,  and  a  better. 
It  could  hardly  be  otherwise  as  long  as  Christ  on  His 
Cross  remains  the  prominent  figure  in  Roman  Catholic 
Churches.  There  is  an  incalculable  amount  of  the 
deepest  self-devotion,  the  most  ardent  zeal,  the  most 
exquisite  purity  of  heart  and  life,  the  most  unbounded 
meekness,  humility,  and  submission  in  the  Roman 
communion  ;  and  it  must  be  admitted  that  these 
qualities  are,  to  a  very  considerable  extent,  a  conse- 
quence of  her  system.  Such  qualities  are  an  untold 
source  of  moral  strength,  and  without  them  she  would 
barely    have    been    able    to    outlast   the    century.     As 


262     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

Carlyle  once  said,  Romanism  unquestionably  has  a 
raison  d'etre,  and  not  until  she  ceases  to  have  one 
can  she  cease  to  exist.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  for 
the  ignorant,  for  women,  for  men  of  meek  and  sub- 
missive temperament,  for  men  who  are  worn  out  by 
intellectual  conflicts,  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  pre- 
sents herself  as  a  haven  of  peace,  a  calm  and  restful 
authority  which  stills  the  struggles  of  the  rebellious 
heart.  But  certainly  at  the  present  moment  it  has 
once  more  become  necessary  to  remind  men  that  there 
is  a  reverse  to  the  medal,  another  side  to  the  picture.^ 
The  recoil  towards  Rome  from  the  vulgar  Protestantism 
of  half  a  century  back,  reinforced  as  it  is  by  a  spurious 
Liberalism  and  a  still  more  spurious  charity,  compels 
us  once  more  to  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  there  is 
a  "  seamy  side "  to  Romanism  as  a  religious  system. 
The  ignorant,  the  commonplace,  the  submissive,  the 
meek  and  lowly,  the  wearied  and  exhausted  are  not 
the  only  members  of  a  church  which  numbers  a 
Peter  and  a  Paul,  an  Athanasius,  a  Jerome,  and  a 
Bernard,  to  name  no  other  name,  among  her  saints. 
It  has  become  necessary  once  more  to  insist,  and 
to  insist  strongly,  that  freedom  of  thought,  freedom 
of  opinion,  freedom  of  discussion,  are  the  inalienable 
privileges  of  mankind.  If  freedom,  as  it  often  does, 
degenerates  into  licence,  authority  not  unfrequently 
slides  into  tyranny,  and  tyranny  is  everywhere  a  blight- 
ing  curse.^      A  combination    of   circumstances  has   of 

^  These  words  were  written  before  the  revelations  of  the  Dreyfus  case 
startled  all  honest  men,  Roman  Catholic  as  well  as  Protestant.  Many  who 
would  have  disputed  their  justice  when  they  were  written  would  admit  it  now. 

^  "  Disunion  comes  from  rebellion,  and  rebellion  comes  from  tyranny,  and 
tyranny  is  only  the  exaggeration  of  authority  pushed  to  excess"  (Duggan, 
"Steps  towards  Reunion,"  p.  77).  "Rebellion  comes  from  too  much  ruling, 
blind  obedience  makes  blind  subjects  ;  blind  subjects  make  blind  rulers,  and 


ROMANISM  SINCE  THE  REFORMATION  263 

late  tended  to  obscure  our  English  apprehension  of 
the  evils  of  an  ecclesiastical  despotism,  its  injustice,  its 
intrigues,^  its  favouritism,  its  suppression,  whenever 
possible,  of  inconvenient  facts.  We  have  had  our  eyes 
too  exclusively  fixed  on  our  own  shortcomings,  our  at- 
tention too  unfrequently  directed  to  the  far  graver  evils 
produced  by  a  system  the  very  opposite  of  our  own. 
Men  forget,  moreover,  that  Rome,  in  spite  of  her  mani- 
fold shortcomings  in  every  respect,  professes  to  be 
under  infallible  guidance,  whereas  at  most  we  do  not 
pretend  to  do  more  than  feel  our  way  from  good  to 
better.  Many  of  us,  appalled  by  the  spectacle  of  our 
own  intestine  divisions,  have  come  to  look  upon  schism 
as  the  one  unpardonable  sin,  forgetting  that  there  is 
at  least  one  thing  more  precious  than  the  preservation 
of  an  external  unity — and  that  one  thing  is  truth. 
At  a  moment  such  as  this,  a  restatement  of  the  main 
principles  of  the  Reformation  has  become  a  para- 
mount necessity.  At  the  Reformation  there  was  no 
intention  of  questioning  the  fundamental  truths  of  the 
Christian  religion.  All  that  was  contended  for  was, 
that  those  principles  once  admitted,  the  fullest  liberty 
should  be  conceded  of  discussing  and  elaborating  them, 
of  applying  them,  and  of  drawing  conclusions  from 
them.  Christians  are  pledged  neither  to  the  opinions 
of  Luther,  Calvin,  nor  Zwingli,  of  Cranmer,  Ridley  and 
Latimer,  nor,  we  may  even  venture  to  add,  of  Origen, 
Athanasius,  or  Augustine.     We  venerate  all  these  men  ; 

we  know  what  happens  when  the  blind  lead  the  blind"  (Ibid.,  p.  io8).  Car- 
dinal Vaughan  has  found  it  his  duty  to  delate  this  work,  written  by  a  Roman 
Catholic  priest,  to  the  Holy  See  as  "  offensive  to  pious  ears,  temerarious,  and 
scandalous." 

^  "Cardinal  Manning's  Life,"  by  Mr.  Purcell,  shows  to  what  courses  an 
educated  Englishman  could  descend,  as,  for  instance,  in  the  Errington'casc, 
when  entangled  in  the  meshes  of  the  Vaticanist  system. 


264     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

we  believe  that  the  Holy  Ghost  has  spoken  by  each 
and  all  of  them  in  their  measure.  But  the  Christian 
conscience  recognises  none  of  them  as  infallible.  It 
attributes  infallibility  to  nothing  but  the  teaching  of 
Christ,  as  preserved  in  the  Scriptures,  and  handed 
down  in  and  by  the  Universal  Church.  It  claims  to  be 
left  unfettered,  save  by  those  elementary  principles.  It 
asks  to  be  allowed  to  "  prove  all  things,"  as  well  as  to 
*'  hold  fast  that  which  is  good."  It  declines  to  "  teach 
for  doctrines  the  commandments  of  men."  It  draws 
no  artificial  or  exaggerated  distinctions  between  the 
governors  and  the  governed  in  Christ's  Church,  believ- 
ing that  "the  manifestation  of  the  Spirit  is  given  to 
every  man  to  profit  withal,"  and  that  the  "unction 
from  the  Holy  One,"  which  enables  us  to  "  know  all 
things,"  is  not  the  exclusive  possession  of  any  class  or 
order  within  her  pale.  Upon  the  fact  that  each  one  of 
us  hath  been  "made  to  drink"  into  "a  free  Spirit"  it 
is  content  to  rest.  And  it  hopes,  day  by  day,  and  step 
by  step,  in  rehance  on  that  Spirit's  indwelling  in  the 
Church,  to  draw  ever  nearer  to  the  hour  when  it  shall 
have  been  guided  by  the  same  Spirit  "into  all  the 
truth." 


CHAPTER  XIII 

ENGLISH  CHRISTIANITY  TO-DAY 

By  the  Right  Rev.  ALFRED  BARRY,  D.D. 

In  the  order  of  thought  suggested  in  these  Essays, 
"  the  English  Christianity  of  to-day "  must  be  con- 
sidered, both  in  itself,  and  in  respect  of  the  contribution 
which  it  has  to  make  to  the  present  and  future  life  of 
the  whole  Church  of  Christ.  It  is  clear  that  this  con- 
sideration of  it  must  take  account,  not  merely  of  those 
essentials  of  Christianity,  in  which  all  Christians  and 
all  Churches  are  one,  but  of  the  peculiar  characteristics 
which  have  been  so  stamped  upon  it  in  the  course  of 
its  history,  as  to  give  it  at  this  moment  a  certain  tone 
and  power  of  its  own.  Now  the  "  English  Christianity 
of  to-day  "  is  the  outcome  of  a  continuous  growth  from 
the  whole  English  Christianity  of  the  past,  but  especi- 
ally since  the  great  epoch  of  the  Reformation.  For  at 
that  time  it  had  to  take  up  a  position  of  decided, 
though  not  unlimited,  independence  ;  while  declaring 
emphatically  that  it  "  intended  not  to  decline  or  vary 
from  the  congregation  of  Christ's  Church  in  things 
concerning  the  Catholic  faith  of  Christendom,  or 
declared  in  Holy  Scripture  and  the  Word  of  God  to  be 
necessary  to  salvation."  It  is  the  combination  of  the 
attachment  to  Catholic  unity  here  claimed,  with  the 
independence  of  a  free  development  of  its  own  especial 

character,  which  has  always  constituted  the  peculiarity 

265 


2  66     THE   CHURCH,  PAST    AND    PRESENT 

of  English  Christianity,  and  determined  its  function  as 
a  factor  in  the  common  growth  of  the  Kingdom  of 
Christ  itself.  But  our  own  age  has  brought  out  that 
function  with  a  new  clearness  and  vividness,  because 
(as  will  be  noticed  more  fully  hereafter)  it  is  a  period 
of  expansion  of  that  Christianity,  both  in  fact  and  in 
idea,  losing  insularity  in  the  conception  and  realization 
of  a  world-wide  mission. 

I  ought  to  say  at  the  outset  that,  in  this  attempt  to 
estimate  it,  I  must  be  in  the  main  content  to  refer  to 
English  Christianity  as  it  is  represented  in  the  Church 
of  England.  I  do  so,  not  only  with  a  view  to  limit  a 
subject  of  formidable  extent,  and  to  consider  it  in  a  field 
of  which  we  Churchmen  have  the  fullest  knowledge, 
but  also,  because — while  I  do  not  for  a  moment  ignore 
the  strength  and  vitality  of  Nonconformist  Christianity, 
in  England  itself  and  (still  more)  among  the  English- 
speaking  race  in  other  parts  of  the  world — I  cannot  but 
see  that  the  Church  of  England,  as  the  old  National 
Church,  is  necessarily  most  truly  representative  of  the 
characteristics  of  English  Christianity,  as  a  whole — not 
only  in  the  present,  but  in  the  past — not  in  some  classes, 
but  in  all  classes  of  our  people.  It  is,  of  course,  itself 
affected  by  the  reflex  action  upon  it  of  other  religious 
Communions  —  each  of  which  tends  to  emphasize, 
prominently,  sometimes  almost  exclusively,  some  one 
element  of  its  own  complex  life.  But  it  maintains 
still  the  comprehensiveness  of  its  representative 
character.  Although  the  old  condition  of  things  has 
passed  away,  in  which  the  Church  was  looked  upon  as 
co-extensive  with  the  nation — as  in  fact  the  nation  itself 
in  its  spiritual  life — it  has  left  behind  this  representa- 
tive character  as  an  inheritance  from  the  past.     More- 


ENGLISH   CHRISTIANITY   TO-DAY     267 

over,  the  Church  of  England  by  its  very  nature  stands, 
not  only  as  the  Nonconformist  Communions  stand, 
for  Christian  truth,  but  for  Christian  unity,  which  Non- 
conformity, as  such,  disregards,  though  it  is  remarkable 
that  some  Nonconformist  Communions  are  now  begin- 
ning to  make  tentative  approaches  to  it.  If  therefore 
English  Christianity,  as  such,  is  to  have  any  collective 
mission  of  service  to  the  whole  Church  of  Christ, 
it  seems  overwhelmingly  probable,  if  not  absolutely 
certain,  that  it  will  have  to  discharge  that  mission 
mainly  through  the  Church  of  England. 

I.  Now  it  is  clear  that  the  peculiar  character  of 
our  English  Christianity  is  determined  by  the  very  fact 
that  it  is  English — that  it  is  indeed  the  leading  factor  in 
the  remarkable  function,  which  undoubtedly  belongs  to 
the  English-speaking  race,  in  regard  to  the  progress  of 
humanity.  For  its  main  principle — distinctly  asserted 
at  the  Reformation,  but  not  as  a  new  thing — is  the 
realization  in  the  spiritual  sphere  of  what  has  been  the 
distinguishing  feature  of  the  whole  national  life  of 
England.  This  is  unquestionably  the  resolute  main- 
tenance of  a  harmony  of  individuality  with  unity, 
of  freedom  with  authority — a  harmony  necessarily 
difficult  and  imperfect,  involving  many  irregularities 
and  anomalies,  which  are  the  scorn  of  the  adherents 
of  narrower  systems,  but  accordant  with  our  human 
nature,  which  is  at  once  individual  and  social,  and  with 
the  Divine  Government,  which.  Almighty  as  it  is,  never- 
theless works  upon  men,  and  through  men,  as  free.  It 
is  an  ideal,  which  has  been  to  a  great  extent  realized 
in  the  lower  spheres  of  English  experience.  There  its 
realization  has,  first,  created  a  splendid  national  life, 
ruled  by  a  free  loyalty,  which  is  incomprehensible  to 


268     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

the  iron  systems  of  despotism,  and  lasting  on  in  an 
unbroken  continuity,  while  revolution  has  convulsed 
them,  or  oppression  has  brought  with  it  decay  of 
national  strength.  It  has,  next,  been  the  chief  secret 
of  that  extraordinary  spread  of  the  dominion  and  in- 
fluence of  the  English-speaking  race,  which  is  acknow- 
ledged as  being  in  some  sense  unique  in  the  history 
of  the  world.  Accordingly  it  has  been,  as  indeed  it 
was  bound  to  be,  the  leading  characteristic  of  the 
English  Christianity,  which  lies  at  the  heart  of  English 
character  and  English  influence.  Even  under  the  Papal 
autocracy  it  asserted  itself  vigorously,  although  perhaps 
illogically  so  long  as  that  autocracy  was  acknowledged, 
mainly  in  respect  of  the  independence  of  the  National 
Church,  but  in  some  degree  in  respect  of  individual 
freedom  of  thought  and  faith.  In  the  sixteenth  century 
that  assertion  in  both  its  elements,  but  especially  the 
latter,  was  made  more  thorough  and  consistent.  On 
it  depends  the  true  meaning  of  the  common  phrase, 
sometimes  discredited,  but  undoubtedly  true,  that  the 
Church  of  England  is  at  once  "Catholic  and  Protestant." 
For  Protestantism,  if  we  pass  beyond  its  merely  negative 
sense  of  repudiation  of  Papal  authority  and  doctrines 
distinctively  Romish,  is  really  religious  individuality  ; 
while  Catholicity  involves  the  right  subordination  of 
this  individuality  to  the  authority  of  the  whole  body. 
But  this  harmony  of  the  two  ideas  was  a  natural 
growth,  not  an  artificial  balance  of  opposites.  There 
can  be  no  greater  error  than  to  suppose,  as  men  con- 
stantly appear  to  suppose,  that  the  course  of  the  English 
Reformation  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries, 
or  of  the  subsequent  history  of  the  English  Church, 
was  determined  by  a  deliberate  attempt  to  secure  this 


ENGLISH   CHRISTIANITY   TO-DAY     269 

harmony  artificially,  and  to  choose  with  that  view  what 
has  been  called  (from  an  extension  of  a  statement  in 
the  Preface  to  our  Prayer-Book,  which  refers  only 
to  the  matter  of  Revision),  the  Via  Media  of  balance 
between  opposite  extremes.  The  leading  idea  of  our 
Reformers  was  undoubtedly  the  ascertainment  and 
revival  in  all  essentials  of  primitive  truth,  as  is  shown 
by  the  emphatic  appeal  to  the  sufficiency  and  supremacy 
of  Holy  Scripture,  as  the  articulus  stantis  aut  cadentis 
ecclesicE.  A  true  way  is  likely  enough  to  be  a  middle 
way  ;  for  historically  errors  are  apt  to  diverge  on 
either  hand.  But  it  is  important  to  understand  that 
the  ideal  of  the  Church  of  England  is  the  Via  Media 
quia  vera,  and  not  the  Via  vera  quia  Media :  for  there 
is  a  world-wide  difference  between  the  comprehensive- 
ness which  is  the  natural  result  of  the  one,  and  the 
compromise  which  must  attach  to  the  other.  Nor 
should  we  fail  to  notice  that,  as  usual  in  our  English 
experience,  the  approach  to  that  ideal  has  been  rather 
a  natural  and  gradual  advance,  than  the  result  of  any 
deliberate  scheme  of  thought  and  action.  For  the  object 
contemplated  has  always  been  the  modification  and  re- 
formation of  the  old,  so  far,  and  only  so  far,  as  was 
necessary,  rather  than  the  striking  out  of  a  system 
absolutely  new.  In  this  respect  the  Christianity  of  the 
Church  of  England  stood  out  in  the  sixteenth  century 
in  obvious  distinction  from  Continental  Protestantism, 
especially  in  the  logical  completeness  of  the  Calvinistic 
system,  by  which  the  Puritan  party  tried  in  vain  to 
mould  it.  In  this  it  still  stands  distinct  from  the 
Christianity  of  other  reformed  Communions  at  home 
and  abroad.  The  distinction  involved,  and  still  involves, 
some   penalty   of    isolation.      But  it  points  to  that  in 


2  70     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND    PRESENT 

which  lie  the  real  strength  of  the  Church  of  England, 
and  her  hope  of  larger  service  to  Christendom. 

In  all  that  is  here  said  I  shall  take  it  for  granted 
that  this  ideal  will  be  substantially  preserved.  It  is, 
indeed,  natural,  perhaps  inevitable,  that  there  should 
have  been  at  different  times  tendencies  within  the  Church 
of  England  itself  to  destroy  or  impair  this  characteristic 
position,  by  so  exaggerating  one  or  other  of  the  ele- 
ments of  this  harmony,  as  practically  to  ignore  the 
harmony  itself.  In  past  times  this  tendency  has  been 
perhaps  mainly  what  is  commonly  called  "  ultra-Pro- 
testant," recognising  only  the  sacredness  of  individual 
Christianity,  ignoring  the  equal  sacredness  of  the  collec- 
tive life  of  the  Church  itself,  and  ascribing  whatever 
authority  and  unity  it  has  to  its  Establishment  by  the 
State.  At  the  present  moment  what  calls  itself  the 
"  Catholic  Revival  "  adopts  the  opposite  extreme,  tend- 
ing to  overbear  individual  freedom  and  independence, 
as  far  as  possible,  by  appeal  to  ecclesiastical,  which  is 
virtually  clerical  authority,  and  accordingly,  as  it  seems, 
desiring  to  revert,  in  respect  both  of  worship  and  Church 
government,  to  that  condition  of  things  which  the 
Reformation  swept  away.  These  tendencies  manifest 
themselves  in  the  formation  of  opposite  schools  of 
thought  in  the  Church,  to  which  they  give  a  distinc- 
tive colour,  and  which  stand  in  pronounced  and  often 
vehement  antagonism.  But  the  seriousness  of  these 
divisions,  unhappy  as  they  are,  is  apt  to  be  exaggerated, 
both  within  the  Church,  and  still  more  beyond  her 
pale.  They  do  not  touch  the  chief  fundamentals  of 
the  faith ;  they  do  not  enlist  in  their  conflict  the  mass 
of  the  Church  ;  their  sound  is  far  greater  than  their 
strength  ;  what  her  enemies  call  "  a  city  of  confusion  " 


ENGLISH   CHRISTIANITY   TO-DAY     271 

is  really  "  a  city  that  hath  the  foundations."  For  neither 
of  these  antagonistic  tendencies  has  ever  prevailed,  or 
is  Hkely  to  prevail,  against  the  comprehensive  ideal  of 
the  Church  of  England.  There  were  times,  as  in  the 
sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries,  when  success  may 
have  appeared  to  be  within  the  reach  of  the  former  ; 
but  the  appearance  was  falsified  by  the  event.  The 
latter,  hovi^ever,  loudly  and  earnestly  urged,  is  simply 
an  anachronism  ;  its  prevalence  is  out  of  the  question  ; 
it  is  more  likely  to  provoke  a  dangerous  and  revolu- 
tionary reaction  in  the  opposite  direction.  The  great 
body  of  the  Church  goes  on  quietly  in  loyalty  to 
its  old  traditions — perhaps  over  quietly  ;  for  it  allows 
the  extremes,  vehemently  and  noisily  self-assertive, 
to  assume  an  apparent  importance,  far  beyond  their 
intrinsic  strength. 

II.  Now  this  harmony  of  individuality  and  unity  is 
not  a  matter  of  theory,  nor  does  it  depend  on  abstract 
declarations,  which  have  little  effect  on  the  great  mass 
of  men.  It  is  brought  home  practically  to  all  in  the 
doctrine  of  the  Word  and  the  Sacraments,  and  so  in  the 
daily  life  and  worship  of  the  Church. 

The  appeal  to  Holy  Scripture,  as  the  one  ultimate 
standard  of  faith,  is  a  leading  characteristic  of  all 
English  Christianity.  But  it  is  put  forth  with  a  singular 
clearness  and  force  in  the  Church  of  England.  Prob- 
ably no  Church  in  Christendom  has  enunciated  it  more 
decisively  ;  few,  if  any,  have  taken  so  much  pains  to 
make  it  effective,  by  providing  that  Holy  Scripture 
shall  be  read  through  and  through  in  the  public 
Service.  Of  course,  to  take  the  Bible  literally,  as  "the 
Bible  alone,"  without  illustration  and  interpretation 
from  the  thought  and  life  of  the  Church  in  all  ages,  and 


2  72     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

to  suppose  that  no  ordinance  of  the  Church  can  have 
authority,  which  is  not  expressly  enjoined  in  Holy 
Scripture,  is  not  to  take  the  Bible  as  God  gave  it.  For 
it  was  certainly  given  under  His  Providence  to  a 
Church,  and  given  in  close  connection  with  its  con- 
tinuous life.  The  Old  Testament  grew  up  through  the 
centuries  within  the  Covenant  of  Israel  ;  it  cannot  be 
fully  understood  except  in  connection  with  the  history 
of  the  covenanted  people.  The  New  Testament  grew 
up  through  the  first  century  of  our  era,  in  a  Church, 
which  had  actually  been  founded  in  the  whole  Roman 
Empire  before  the  New  Testament  itself  was  complete ; 
and  it  takes  the  existence  and  authority  of  that  Church 
for  granted  in  every  page.  The  Church  of  England, 
true,  as  usual,  to  history,  commits  no  such  error  ;  she 
accepts  the  Creeds  of  the  Catholic  Church,  as  the 
interpreters  of  Scriptural  truth,  in  its  essence  and  in  the 
right  proportion  of  its  various  elements  ;  she  recognises 
that  the  Church,  and  even  "  each  particular  or  national 
Church,"  "  has  an  authority  to  decree  rites  and  cere- 
monies," which  is  binding  on  the  individual  conscience, 
provided  that  nothing  be  decreed  contrary  to  Holy 
Scripture ;  "  as  a  witness  and  keeper  of  Holy  Writ," 
she  claims  ''authority" — a  real,  although  not  absolute 
or  infallible,  authority — "  in  controversies  of  faith." 
But  that  authority  is  of  interpretation,  not  of  addition  ; 
no  tradition  of  the  Church  is  to  be  co-ordinated  with 
Scripture,  and  regarded  pari  pietatis  affectu  et  reverentia. 
Nothing  is  allowed  to  set  aside,  or  explain  away,  the 
free  appeal  to  Holy  Scripture  as  supreme  ;  nothing 
accordingly  to  stand  between  it  and  the  individual  mind 
and  conscience  of  the  believer. 

Now  this  appeal  to  an  open  Bible,  freely  circulated 


ENGLISH   CHRISTIANITY   TO-DAY     273 

and  freely  read,  is  certainly  the  charter  of  individuality 
in  the  Church.  For  the  Bible  speaks  directly  to  the 
individual,  as  the  Word  of  God  in  Christ.  It  is, 
indeed,  ministered  to  us  by  the  Church,  and,  in  fact, 
received  by  us  generally  through  that  ministration. 
But  it  can  speak,  and  does  speak,  independently,  as 
"  living  and  powerful,"  to  each  soul  alone,  face  to  face 
with  God,  with  no  mediation  except  the  mediation  of 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  ;  and  by  it  ultimately,  as  the 
supreme  standard  of  faith,  all  teaching  must  be  judged 
and  tested  in  each  man's  conscience.  The  appeal  to  it 
is,  therefore,  the  safeguard  in  the  Church  of  individual 
freedom  and  individual  responsibility. 

Yet  at  the  same  time  it  clearly  supplies  the  basis 
of  the  only  Christian  unity,  which  is  possible  in  days 
of  growing  spiritual  activity  and  spiritual  freedom — a 
unity  comprehensive  of  variety,  because  dependent  on 
principle,  rather  than  formal  rule  and  law.  That  unity 
can  be  seen  largely  realized  even  now  in  our  English 
Christianity,  in  spite  of  the  divisions  and  controversies 
which  are  its  bane.  Wherever  Holy  Scripture  is  ac- 
cepted as  a  Divine  rule  of  faith,  there  is  a  striking 
agreement  in  the  great  body  of  English  Christians  on 
the  fundamental  verities  of  the  faith,  as  expressed,  for 
example,  in  the  Apostles'  Creed.  For  Holy  Scripture, 
as  we  see  more  clearly  every  day,  is  a  power,  "not 
of  the  letter,  but  of  the  Spirit,"  in  its  infinite  variety 
appealing  to  the  whole  man  in  mind  and  heart  and 
spirit,  and  yet  through  all  that  variety  essentially  one. 
As  simply  a  record,  historical  and  spiritual,  of  the  dis- 
pensation of  God  to  humanity,  it  centres  in  the  Word 
and  Person  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  Up  to  Him  all 
leads  which  goes  before,  from   Him  all  which  follows 

S 


2  74     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

is  derived.  Hence  it  has  to  be  taken  as  a  whole,  which 
cannot  be  understood  piecemeal,  as  though  in  each 
text  or  book  the  perfect  truth  was  enshrined.  So  taken 
it  founds  our  faith  on  the  central  reality — "  learning 
Christ,  and  being  taught  of  Christ " — and  on  this  basis 
there  must  be  a  resting-place  for  all  who  come  to  Him 
as  "  having  the  words  of  eternal  life." 

The  Church  of  England,  moreover,  as  we  know, 
has  laid  down  as  authoritative  no  theory  as  to  the  in- 
spiration of  that  Holy  Scripture.  That  it  is  a  true  and 
all-sufficient  revelation  of  God  in  Christ,  "  containing  all 
things  necessary  to  salvation " — this,  indeed,  is  most 
unequivocally  asserted  ;  but  beyond  this,  which  alone 
is  absolutely  needful,  the  declaration  does  not  go.  It 
implies,  no  doubt,  a  belief  in  a  special  and  unique 
inspiration  of  the  writers  of  Holy  Scripture,  enabling 
them  to  speak  in  the  name  of  God  the  Gospel  of  Christ, 
in  words  of  truth,  which  shall  endure  for  ever,  and 
determine  the  faith  of  all  mankind.  But  what  that 
inspiration  is,  how  it  has  been  given,  how  much  it 
implies,  how  it  is  related  to  the  human  personality  of 
him  who  receives  it  and  to  the  spirit  of  his  age — this  is 
nowhere  determined.  On  all  these  points  the  thought- 
ful mind  must  and  will  speculate  ;  on  all  these  has 
always  been,  among  sincere  believers,  great  variety  of 
opinion.  But  on  the  determination  of  them  the  Church 
does  not  venture :  for  it  is  clearly  a  secret  of  the  Spirit 
of  God  Himself. 

Accordingly,  in  the  study  of  Holy  Scripture,  our 
English  Christianity  leaves  free  scope  for  the  Biblical 
criticism,  which  examines  these  very  points ;  and  gives 
her  members  perfect  liberty  to  consider  it  in  each  case 
on  its  own  merits,  provided  always — and  the  proviso 


ENGLISH   CHRISTIANITY  TO-DAY     275 

is  important — that  the  great  fundamental  principle, 
so  emphatically  asserted,  shall  neither  be  denied  nor 
explained  away.  In  this  generation  it  is  all  but 
universally  acknowledged  that,  taken  as  a  whole,  such 
criticism  has  given  a  more  living  interest  and  force 
to  Holy  Scripture,  and  taught  us  better  to  understand 
it  in  all  the  stages  of  its  development  as  a  whole.  No 
doubt  the  criticism  itself,  especially  the  confident  a 
priori  criticism,  needs  to  be  criticized,  and  corrected  by 
appeal  to  evidences  of  a  different  kind  ;  and  experience, 
in  regard  especially  to  the  New  Testament,  has  shown 
us  how,  so  treated,  it  is  sure  to  be  reduced  to  its  right 
limits  of  authority.  But  it  is  to  such  correction,  not  to 
suppression  or  denunciation,  that  the  Church  of  England 
is  bound  by  her  traditions  to  trust. 

Nor  is  her  position  different  in  relation  to  the 
discoveries  of  physical  or  historical  science,  which 
crowd  upon  us  every  day.  All  who  believe  in  God 
must  suppose  that  the  book  of  Nature  and  the  book  of 
Humanity  are  in  a  true  sense  books  of  God,  revealing 
Him  in  His  almighty  power,  His  perfect  wisdom,  His 
transcendent  righteousness  and  love.  If,  therefore,  the 
Church  of  England  appeals  to  Holy  Scripture  as  the 
supreme  revelation  of  Him,  she  is  bound  to  welcome 
all  these  lower  revelations  as  necessarily  harmonizing 
with  it,  although  incapable  of  rising  to  the  higher 
mysteries  of  the  Gospel,  which  this  supreme  revelation 
has  made  to  be  the  treasure  of  all  humanity.  Their 
discoveries  may  affect,  and  have  affected,  our  interpre- 
tations of  Holy  Scripture,  where  it  touches  upon  the 
lower  spheres.  But  the  central  spiritual  truth,  and  its 
inherent  spiritual  power,  they  cannot  touch.  Nay,  as 
they   are   more    philosophically    considered,    and    pre- 


276     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

tensions  put  forth  in  their  name  are  more  carefully 
scrutinized,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that,  like  the  Biblical 
criticism  to  which  I  have  already  referred,  they  have 
already  thrown  the  light  of  illustration  and  analogy  on 
many  of  the  most  important  elements  of  the  Christian 
faith.  And  this  attitude  of  what  may  be  called  a 
friendly  and  gracious  independence  towards  all  scientific 
or  historical  discovery  is  of  infinite  importance  ;  on  it 
depends  not  only  the  freedom  of  individual  thought  and 
faith  within  the  pale  of  the  Church,  but  also  the 
accordance  of  her  teaching  with  human  progress,  and 
the  consequent  prospect  of  her  ability  to  direct  and 
mould  it  in  the  future,  as  in  the  past. 

Once  more — and  this  vitally  affects  its  fitness  for  the 
vast  opportunity  of  missionary  work,  which  has  been 
given  us  under  the  Providence  of  God — our  English 
Christianity  is  now  learning  to  assume  a  corresponding 
attitude  towards  the  religions  of  the  world.  We  see 
the  infinite  significance  of  the  fact,  that  in  all  races  of 
the  earth  religion  in  some  form — the  recognition,  that 
is,  of  a  Superhuman  Power  creating,  ruling,  sustaining 
the  world  and  man — is  in  possession  of  the  whole  field 
of  human  thought.  Crude,  often  grotesque,  in  the 
barbarian  races — elaborate,  profound,  philosophical  in 
advanced  civilisations — everywhere  it  manifests  itself  as 
a  development  of  an  universal  instinct  implanted  in  our 
human  nature  by  its  Creator.  As  such,  it  must  always 
have  an  essential  sacredness,  in  spite  of  all  perversions, 
hesitations,  superstitions.  Our  English  Christianity  is 
more  and  more  realizing  that  sacredness,  and  beginning 
to  reproduce,  with  the  advantage  of  larger  knowledge 
and  experience,  the  attitude  of  the  old  Alexandrian 
School  of  Theology  towards  the  heathenism  of  earlier 


ENGLISH   CHRISTIANITY   TO-DAY     277 

days.  For,  after  all,  this  is  but  to  follow  the  teaching 
of  St.  Paul  at  Athens.  It  is  to  acknowledge,  on  the  one 
hand,  that  all  these  religions  are  embodiments  of  that 
"  feeling  after  God,"  which  is  an  element  of  the 
supreme  purpose,  for  which  "  He  made  of  one  blood  all 
the  nations  of  the  earth,"  and  that  whatever  is  true  in 
them  is  a  divine  revelation,  through  which  they  "  find 
Him,"  or  rather  "  are  found  of  Him."  It  is  to  put 
forth,  on  the  other,  with  reverent  and  enthusiastic 
confidence,  the  claim  of  our  Christianity  to  declare  in 
Christ  the  God  who,  to  their  "  ignorant  worship,"  is  "  a 
God  unknown,"  though  not  unfelt,  and  in  this  revela- 
tion, of  which  they  are  but  "  broken  lights,"  to  dispel 
all.  mists  of  doubt,  and  all  clouds  of  error  and  super- 
stition. The  deeper  study  of  the  religions  of  the  world, 
in  the  light  of  our  Christianity,  and  especially  the  com- 
parison of  their  sacred  books  with  the  transcendent 
power  of  Holy  Scripture,  have  certainly  taught  us  to 
hold  firmly  both  these  elements  of  the  Apostolic  teach- 
ing, and  to  hold  them  moreover  in  their  right  proportion. 

All  these  things  are  results  of  the  supreme  appeal 
to  Holy  Scripture,  bringing  out,  first  the  freedom  of 
religious  individuality,  and  then  through  it  the  unity  of 
comprehensiveness. 

The  same  result  seems  to  follow,  but  in  the 
reverse  order,  from  the  co-ordination  of  the  Sacraments 
of  the  Gospel  with  the  Word. 

Primarily  it  is  clear  that  the  Sacraments  are 
witnesses  and  expressions  of  Church  unity.  For  they 
cannot  be  laid  hold  of  by  each  man  for  himself ;  they 
need  the  ministration  of  the  Church.  By  the  first,  men 
<'  are  grafted  into  the  body  of  Christ's  Church  ;  "  by  the 
second,   they   are   perfected    in   the   membership    thus 


2  78     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

begun.  As  Hooker  expresses  it  in  well-known  words  : 
"  The  saving  grace,  which  Christ  originally  is,  or  hath, 
for  the  good  of  His  whole  Church,  the  same  by 
sacraments  He  severally  deriveth  to  each  member 
thereof."  The  Church  of  England  has  brought  out  in 
her  Services,  with  unmistakable  emphasis,  the  mys- 
terious reality  of  the  Sacraments,  as  Christ  ordained 
them  in  His  Church  for  ever.  In  relation  to  that 
second  great  Sacrament,  which  has  unhappily  been  the 
battlefield  of  religious  coutroversy,  she  has  in  her 
Service  gone  back  through  the  ancient  Liturgies  to 
what  we  may  well  hold  to  be  the  substance  of  an 
Apostolic  original.  This  "  sacramental  teaching  "  is  the 
needful  and  most  unequivocal  witness  to  the  corporate 
life  and  unity  in  Christ  of  the  Church  as  a  whole.  By 
pure  religious  individualism  it  is  accordingly  apt  to  be 
ignored  or  depreciated.  In  an  age  like  our  own — when 
pure  individualism  in  any  form  is  felt  to  be  insufficient 
to  solve  human  problems,  and  when  what  may  be 
called  in  the  most  general  sense  "  socializing  "  principles 
are  increasingly  maintained  and  reverenced — it  is  most 
natural  that  this  sacramental  teaching  of  our  Prayer- 
Book,  and  the  consciousness  which  it  implies  of  the 
sacredness  of  the  Communion  of  Saints,  and  its  autho- 
rity over  individual  life,  should  have  been  brought  out, 
in  word  and  in  practice,  with  increased  emphasis,  and 
should,  as  usual,  have  sometimes  tended  by  reaction  to 
exaggeration.  This  movement  of  thought  (be  it  noted) 
is  traceable  in  different  degrees  in  other  religious  Com- 
munions than  our  own.  But  in  the  steadfast  and 
thoughtful  maintenance  of  it  by  our  own  Church,  is  one 
main  secret  of  her  power  of  adaptation  to  the  needs 
of  humanity,  especially  in  these  later  days. 


ENGLISH   CHRISTIANITY  TO-DAY     279 

At  the  same  time  it  will  be  noticed  that  in  her 
sacramental  teaching,  individuality  is  doubly  guarded. 

First,  the  Church  has  deliberately  abstained  from 
all  attempts  to  dogmatize  on  the  method  and  character 
of  the  mystery  of  the  Sacraments,  and  has  absolutely 
protested  against  rationalizing  it  (so  to  speak)  in  either 
direction,  Roman  or  Zwinglian.  On  this  matter  indivi- 
dual opinion  and  faith  are  left  free,  with  room  for 
large  variety  of  development.  What  was  said  by  the 
same  theologian,  already  quoted,  as  to  the  second  great 
Sacrament,  in  an  age  of  bold  speculation  and  vehement 
controversy,  expresses  most  truly  the  mind  of  the 
Church  of  England  on  the  whole  subject.  There  are 
sufficient  grounds  of  universal  agreement,  on  which  all 
may  rest.  Beyond  this  lie  varieties  of  theory,  more  or 
less  speculative,  more  or  less  inclined  to  define  the 
indefinable.  It  is  well  for  her  children  to  be  of  the 
number,  not  "  of  those  who,  because  they  enjoyed  not, 
disputed,  but  of  those  who  disputed  not,  because  they 
enjoyed."  All  that  is  asked  of  them  is  to  acknowledge 
the  reality  of  the  Sacraments  as  in  the  New  Testament 
sense  a  "  mystery,"  a  secret  (that  is)  of  God's  dispensa- 
tion, revealed,  so  far  as  it  can  be  revealed,  by  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ. 

Next,  while  emphatically  witnessing  to  the  reality 
of  the  Sacraments  in  themselves,  the  Church  has,  with 
at  least  equal  emphasis,  declared  again  and  again  that 
it  can  be  made  effectively  real  to  each  soul  only  through 
individual  faith,  drawing  out,  as  in  the  Gospel  miracle, 
the  "virtue,"  which  is  in  the  Presence  of  Christ — in 
infancy  a  potential  faith  of  promise,  to  be  unfolded  here- 
after, in  mature  age  a  faith  of  actual  energy.  That 
which  is  spiritual  can  only  be  spiritually  received.     In 


2  8o     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

the  clear  conception  of  this  truth  is  obviously  the  safe- 
guard against  superstition  properly  so-called ;  but  in  it 
is  also  implied  the  assertion  of  individuality,  as  resting 
all  access  to  God  on  the  secret  grace  of  the  Holy 
Spirit.  When  in  1559  the  words  of  Administration 
in  the  Holy  Communion  were  brought  to  their  present 
form,  dwelling  in  benediction  on  the  reality  of  the 
Sacramental  gift,  and  in  exhortation  on  the  conditionality 
of  reception,  the  harmony  of  the  two  ideas  was  expressed 
with  a  clearness  which  leaves  nothing  to  be  desired. 

III.  It  should  be  added  that  on  this  same  harmony 
depends  what  is  again  of  infinite  importance,  the  true 
conception  of  the  relation  of  the  clergy  and  laity  in  the 
Church. 

The  Ministry  of  the  Church  is  the  chief  organ  of 
expression  of  its  corporate  life.  It  exists  (as  its  very 
name  implies)  for  the  ministration  both  of  the  Word 
and  of  the  Sacraments  to  the  whole  body  of  the  Church. 
That  it  has  so  existed  from  the  beginning,  as  an  integral 
element  in  the  constitution  of  the  Church,  and  that 
those  who  are  set  apart  for  it  have  always  been  regarded, 
not  as  mere  delegates  of  the  congregation,  but  as  having 
a  mission  from  Christ  Himself,  through  the  chief  of 
His  existing  ministers  from  the  Apostles  downwards — 
this  is  a  matter  of  unquestionable  historical  fact.  On 
that  historical  fact,  not  only  as  to  the  ministry  in  general, 
but  even  as  to  the  three  Orders  of  the  ministry,  the 
Church  of  England  takes  an  unhesitating  stand.  Her 
Ordination  service  would  be  unmeaning,  and  worse  than 
unmeaning,  except  on  this  ground  ;  and  it  draws  the 
inevitable  inference,  that  continuity  of  ministerial  charge 
implies  a  continuity  of  ministerial  blessing  from  Christ 
Himself — an  inference  boldly  expressed  in  the  repetition 


ENGLISH   CHRISTIANITY  TO-DAY     281 

of  the  words  of  our  Lord's  own  charge  to  His  Apostles. 
It  is  well :  for  without  this  acknowledgment  of  the 
sacredness  of  the  ministry,  no  Church  can  well  have  an 
authoritative  and  effective  pastoral  ministration,  a  firm 
organisation,  and  a  real  sense  of  corporate  unity.  No 
society  can  hold  together  without  the  recognition  of 
some  authority,  having  in  some  sense  a  Divine  sanction, 
although  not  claiming,  in  virtue  of  that  sanction,  an 
absolute  and  irresponsible  power.  Such  an  authority  the 
Church  finds  in  a  ministry,  not  dependent  on  the  will 
of  the  congregation,  but  holding  a  commission  from 
the  Lord  Himself.  In  keeping  firmly  to  the  acknow- 
ledgment of  this  character  in  the  ministry,  the  Church 
of  England  places  herself  in  indissoluble  connection  with 
the  Church  Catholic  of  the  past  and  of  the  present. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  grasp  of  the  principle  of 
Individuality  is  the  safeguard  of  the  rights  of  the  lay 
members  of  the  Church  ;  for  it  implies  for  every 
member  of  Christ  individually  a  large  measure  of 
religious  liberty,  both  in  thought  and  in  action ;  it 
asserts  for  him  what  has  been  called  "  the  priesthood 
of  the  laity," — the  freedom  (that  is)  of  access  to  God 
in  Christ,  without  absolute  necessity  of  any  interven- 
tion by  the  ministration  of  the  Church  ;  it  claims  for 
him  an  indefeasible  right  to  all  Church  ordinances, 
provided  that  he  has  the  necessary  spiritual  conditions 
of  repentance  and  faith.  In  all  these  points  the  posi- 
tion of  the  Church  of  England  stands  in  marked  con- 
trast with  the  strongly  compacted  system  of  priestly 
authority  in  the  Church  of  Rome,  as  it  once  ruled, 
although  with  some  restriction,  in  England,  and  as  it 
now  asserts  itself  more  absolutely  than  ever  in  Churches 
under    the    Roman    obedience.       This    freedom    is    so 


2  82     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

deeply  engrained  in  our  whole  conception  of  Christian 
life,  that  any  attempt  to  destroy  or  even  impair  it  must 
prove,  as  I  have  said,  to  be  a  pure  anachronism,  and 
accordingly  a  disastrous  failure.  For  it  should  be  noted 
that  in  the  extreme  simplicity  of  the  terms  of  entrance 
on  lay-membership — the  acceptance  of  Holy  Baptism 
and  of  the  Apostles'  Creed,  which  grew  up  freely  in  the 
West  out  of  the  simple  Baptismal  profession ;  in  the 
large  liberty  of  the  actual  membership,  and  in  the  free 
access,  with  due  spiritual  preparation,  to  the  fulness  of 
that  membership  in  the  Holy  Communion,  we  find  the 
expression  of  that  comprehensiveness  of  the  Church  of 
England  on  a  broad  Scriptural  basis,  of  which  I  have 
already  spoken.  It  is  a  comprehensiveness  which  is 
often  made  her  reproach,  and  which,  undoubtedly, 
involves  some  loss  of  wholesome  discipline,  some  risk 
of  licence,  division,  perplexity,  but  which  is  nevertheless 
the  secret  of  her  vitality,  and  of  the  unequalled  in- 
fluence which  she  exercises  over  English  life  and  thought. 
Liberty  may  be  perverted  to  licence  through  abeyance 
of  discipline  ;  but  it  is  still  the  true  condition  of 
humanity  and  the  mainspring  of  its  progress.  Nor 
is  this  all.  For  with  individual  liberty,  as  experience 
in  other  relations  of  life  shows  us,  is  always  associated 
some  claim  of  a  share  in  the  collective  self-government 
of  the  Church  itself,  in  respect  of  the  legislative,  judicial, 
and  executive  functions  which  such  self-government 
implies ;  and  this  claim  must  be  made  practically  effec- 
tive through  the  representative  institutions,  which  alone 
are  capable  of  reconciling  freedom  with  unity.  All 
these  rights  of  the  laity  belong  to  the  traditions  of  our 
Church ;  all  were  distinctly  reasserted  in  the  whole 
action  of  the  Reformation.     The  individual  rights  are 


ENGLISH   CHRISTIANITY  TO-DAY     283 

recognised  still  to  the  full.  The  right  to  a  co-ordination 
in  government  of  laity  with  clergy  is  acknowledged, 
as  a  matter  of  course,  in  all  other  branches  of  the 
Anglican  Communion.  If  it  has  fallen  into  abeyance  in 
England  itself — in  consequence  not  so  much  of  Estab- 
lishment as  of  the  abuses  of  Establishment — no  one 
can  doubt  that  we  are  feeling  our  way  towards  it  in  our 
tentative  English  fashion  ;  that  in  some  way  the  self- 
government  of  the  whole  body  must  be  attained;  and 
that,  when  it  is  attained,  the  two  Orders  can  work  in  it 
together,  without  confusion  and  conflict,  because  with- 
out trenching  on  each  other's  rights. 

Such,  as  it  seems  to  me,  is  the  leading  characteristic 
principle  of  English  Christianity  as  represented  in  the 
National  Church,  which  is,  I  believe,  in  reality,  as  well 
as  in  theory,  the  truest  organ  of  expression  of  the  Chris- 
tianity of  the  nation  as  a  whole.  But  in  working  out 
this  principle,  which  is  (as  I  have  said)  characteristically 
English  in  the  civil  as  well  as  in  the  ecclesiastical  sphere, 
against  the  irregularities  and  inconsistencies  of  which 
Englishmen  are  tolerant  even  to  excess,  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  our  Church  suffers  greatly  from  the  want 
of  that  which  is  the  very  life  of  the  nation — the  power 
through  self-government  of  self-reformation  and  self- 
adaptation,  throwing  off  what  is  virtually  obsolete, 
adopting  what  is  required  by  new  needs  and  oppor- 
tunities. The  result  of  this  want  is  a  mixture  of  con- 
stitutional immobility  with  developments  of  a  strong 
individual  licence.  Constitutionally  we  can  change 
little  or  nothing.  In  times  of  crisis  and  difficulty  we  are 
obliged  to  rally  round  a  Prayer-Book,  even  in  its  present 
form  more  than  two  hundred  years  old  ;  our  clergy 
still  sign  Articles  intended  for  the  needs,  and  tinctured 


2  84     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND    PRESENT 

by  the  theology,  of  the  sixteenth  century.  Church  re- 
form and  Church  discipHne  can  seldom  be  carried  out 
without  the  consent  of  a  Parliament  wholly  different 
in  character  from  the  Parliament  of  the  Reformation 
period,  and  in  many  cases  cannot  be  carried  out  at 
all.  The  lay  members  of  the  Church  as  such  have  no 
constitutional  means  of  expressing  their  opinion  on 
Church  policy  or  doctrine.  Practically  there  is,  almost 
of  necessity,  much  of  arbitrary  irregularity,  individual 
and  congregational ;  much  of  irresponsible  agitation 
and  dictation  through  voluntary  societies  and  Church 
newspapers  ;  much  unwillingness  to  submit  to  consti- 
tutional authority,  and  a  practical  impossibility  of 
appeal  in  the  last  resort  to  Church  law  through  our 
existing  Courts.  For  variation  from  appointed  order 
there  is  but  one  means  of  authorization  in  that  Epis- 
copal licence,  which  in  itself  might  be  questioned  in 
strict  law  :  in  default  of  legal  enforcement,  appeal  can 
only  be  made  to  Episcopal  decisions,  which  have  to 
rely  simply  on  moral  authority,  and  have  no  remedy 
against  wilful  disobedience.  That,  in  spite  of  all  these 
drawbacks,  the  Church  is  advancing,  and  that  rapidly, 
in  power  and  efficiency,  is  happily  true.  But  it  is  also 
true  that  the  present  position  is  fraught  with  difficulty 
and  danger  ;  and  the  only  remedy  seems  to  lie  in  the 
attainment  or  restoration  of  self-government  of  the 
whole  body.  That  this  is  not  inconsistent  with  Estab- 
lishment in  fact,  the  experience  of  the  Church  of  Scot- 
land shows.  Nay,  we  may  see  clearly  that,  if  exercised, 
as  it  must  be  exercised,  under  recognition  of  the  power 
of  Parliament  to  prevent  its  infringing  on  the  rights  of 
individual  citizens,  or  militating  against  the  welfare  of 
the  whole  community,  it  must  tend  to  the  efficiency  of 


ENGLISH   CHRISTIANITY  TO-DAY     285 

the  Church  in  that  service  to  the  higher  life  of  the 
people,  which  is  the  object  of  Establishment,  and  be 
accordingly  for  the  interests  of  the  nation  as  well  as  of 
the  Church.  Certainly  it  seems  to  be  the  one  thing 
most  needful  for  the  full  vitality  and  progress  of 
English  Christianity,  as  represented  in  the  National 
Church. 

IV.  It  presses  itself  with  a  special  urgency  on  our 
attention  at  this  moment,  because  in  the  Church  of 
England  the  present  century  has  been,  as  I  have 
already  said,  a  most  remarkable  era  of  expansion. 
This  expansion  is  the  fruit  of  the  revivals  which  have 
passed  over  it,  and  thrilled  through  its  whole  life 
during  the  last  hundred  years  ;  and  these — realizing 
vividly,  as  all  true  revivals  must  do,  the  Headship  of 
Christ — seem  to  have  corresponded  generally  to  the 
evolution  of  the  idea  of  that  Headship,  which  we  trace 
in  the  New  Testament.  The  strong  Evangelical  revival 
of  personal  Christianity  early  in  the  century  drew  its 
inspiration  from  the  truth  on  which  St.  Paul  dwelt 
to  the  Corinthians  (i  Cor.  xi.  3),  that  "Christ  is  the 
Head  of  every  man  "  in  his  own  distinct  individuality. 
The  great  High-Church  movement  which  followed — 
avowedly  not  to  supersede,  but  to  supplement  it — was 
simply  a  realization,  in  view  of  the  continuity  of  truth 
and  life  in  the  Church  as  a  whole,  of  the  later  utter- 
ance of  the  same  Apostle  to  the  Ephesians  (Eph.  i.  22), 
that  "  Christ  is  the  Head  over  all  things  to  the  Church, 
which  is  His  body."  The  broader  and  larger  concep- 
tion of  our  Christianity,  which  is  now  developing  itself 
— not  least  among  the  adherents  of  the  High-Church 
movement — rather  seems  to  take  up  the  teaching  of 
the   Epistles  to  the    Ephesians  and  Colossians  on  the 


2  86     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

"  gathering  up  under  one  head "  all  humanity  and  all 
created  being  in  Christ  (Eph.  i.  lo;  Col.  i.  16-18), 
claiming  for  Him  all  knowledge  and  life,  and  seeing 
in  His  Gospel  the  interpretation  of  both.  The  result 
has  been  to  bring  out,  as  in  the  ancient  Creeds,  the 
transcendent  significance  of  the  Incarnation  ;  as,  on 
the  one  hand,  implying  the  completion  of  its  purpose 
for  the  salvation  of  the  world  from  the  guilt  and  bon- 
dage of  sin,  through  the  Atonement,  the  Resurrection,  the 
Ascension  ;  as,  on  the  other  hand,  throwing  back  its 
light  on  the  pre-existence  of  the  Son  of  God,  and  so  on 
the  true  nature  of  the  Godhead,  and  showing  itself,  as 
in  the  Divine  counsels  "  ordained  from  the  foundation 
of  the  world  " — to  be  the  consummation  of  the  creation 
of  humanity  in  that  image  of  God,  which  is  defaced  but 
not  destroyed  by  the  sin  of  the  present,  and  is  to  be 
restored  perfectly  in  the  future.  It  preaches  "  Christ 
crucified,"  deeply  conscious  of  the  burden  of  sin,  with 
its  fruits  of  suffering  and  death,  under  which  we  can 
see  that  all  humanity  groans,  and  hailing  in  Him  the 
Saviour,  who  is  the  propitiation  for  our  sins.  But  it 
preaches  also  Christ  the  Eternal  "Word  of  God," 
incarnate  in  our  humanity,  to  regenerate  it  in  Himself, 
and  to  give  us  the  capacity  of  the  new  life  here  and 
hereafter.  It  is  clear  that  the  vivid  consciousness  of 
this  supreme  truth  must  determine  the  conception  of 
the  mission  of  the  Church  to  humanity,  and  of  humanity 
itself. 

These  three  movements  of  revival,  showing  them- 
selves at  first  in  the  formation  of  schools  and  parties  in  the 
Church,  and  resulting  accordingly  in  much  controversy 
and  conflict,  because  each  was  apt  to  assume  itself  to 
be    all    in     all,    are     now     undoubtedly    being    fused 


ENGLISH   CHRISTIANITY  TO-DAY     287 

together,  stirring  the  life  of  the  whole  body,  and  giving 
it  much  enlargement  of  idea  and  operation,  and  a 
wider  conception  of  its  own  mission  to  the  world.  For 
just  in  proportion  as,  under  different  aspects,  they 
realize  the  One  Headship,  men  come  to  see  that  it  is 
greater  than  their  own  conception  of  it,  and  to  discern 
the  truth  contained  in  the  views  taken  of  it  by  others. 
Exaggeration  and  extravagance  there  are  still,  and 
always  will  be,  in  those  who  are  incapable  of  this 
discernment.  But,  in  great  degree,  it  is  impressing 
itself  on  the  great  body  of  the  Church,  and  in  this  lies 
much  of  the  hope  of  the  future. 

This  expansion  of  idea  is  closely  connected,  both 
in  cause  and  effect,  with  that  extraordinary  outward 
expansion  of  the  Church  (corresponding  to  the  general 
"  Expansion  of  England  "),  which  has  been  the  glory  of 
this  century,  and  especially  of  the  last  fifty  or  sixty 
years.  Few  things  are  more  remarkable  in  Church 
history  than  the  development  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land— once  described,  somewhat  scornfully,  by  Macaulay 
as  an  institution  "  as  purely  local "  to  England,  "  as  the 
Court  of  Common  Pleas  " — once  supposed  by  many  to 
derive  its  unity  and  authority  simply  from  that  recogni- 
tion and  support  of  it  by  the  State,  which  we  call 
"  Establishment,'  and  to  which,  of  course,  this  purely 
local  character  does  attach — into  a  great  "Anglican 
Communion,"  having  a  world-wide  extension  and  an 
independent  life.  That  development,  moreover,  although 
solid  enough,  has  been  marvellously  rapid.  It  belongs 
almost  entirely  to  our  own  age  ;  for  it  is  little  more 
than  a  hundred  years  since  the  first  creation  of  an 
English  Episcopate  abroad,  marking  the  first  planting 
of   an   independent   and  self-governed   Branch   of   our 


288     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

Church,  beyond  the  narrow  limits  of  our  own  shores. 
Even  when  this  beginning  had  been  made,  the  progress 
was  for  many  years  slow.  At  the  opening  of  the 
present  reign  there  were  but  seven  of  such  bishoprics 
in  the  whole  area  of  the  British  Empire,  where  now 
there  are  more  than  eighty,  to  say  nothing  of  nearly 
the  same  number  in  the  Sister  Church  in  America.  Now 
we  see  everywhere  vigorous  and  self-governing  branches 
of  the  Church,  still  preserving  a  close  unity  with  the 
Mother  Church  at  home.  And  this  expansion  brings 
with  it  a  great  variety  of  development.  The  Sister 
Church  in  the  United  States,  and  the  Churches  of  the 
three  great  groups  of  our  Colonies,  in  North  America 
and  the  West  Indies,  in  Australasia,  and  in  South  Africa, 
are,  as  might  have  been  expected,  virtual  reproductions 
in  the  English-speaking  race,  with  independent  variations 
and  adaptations  to  various  needs,  of  the  old  Church  of 
England  itself,  only  without  the  national  recognition  of 
Establishment,  and  with  a  more  unfettered  freedom. 
But  the  growth  of  our  Church  has  extended  itself 
far  beyond  our  own  race,  partly  by  direct  missionary 
impulse  from  England,  partly  by  corresponding  mis- 
sionary energy  in  the  sister  or  daughter  Churches.  In 
face  alike  of  the  ancient  religions  and  civilisations  of 
Asia,  and  of  the  comparative  barbarism  of  Africa  or 
Polynesia,  new  daughter  Churches  are  springing  up, 
which  we  rightly  call  "  native  Churches,"  because,  while 
they  have  been  planted  and  watered  by  our  English 
hands,  they  must  gradually  have  a  large  independence 
of  development,  on  lines  of  their  own,  and  by  their  own 
ministry.  United  with  us  in  the  essentials  of  Christian 
truth  and  Catholic  order,  they  are  not  by  any  means  to 
reproduce  the  formal  Anglican   constitution,  which    is 


ENGLISH   CHRISTIANITY   TO-DAY     289 

here  a  natural  growth,  but  which  would  be  artificial  and 
unreal  for  races  and  conditions  of  life  wholly  unlike  our 
own.  The  task  of  this  varied  and  almost  unbounded 
expansion  has  been  a  glorious,  but  a  formidable  task. 
We  cannot  say  that  it  has  been  adequately  carried  out, 
or  that  the  Church  of  England  has  fully  maintained, 
even  in  the  "  Greater  Britain,"  the  spiritual  leadership, 
which  ought  to  be  hers  in  English  Christianity.  But 
still  the  expansion  has  been  great  already ;  and  the 
undoubted  awakening  of  a  stronger  missionary  spirit 
gives  promise  of  a  more  rapid  progress  in  the  next  fifty 
years.  The  growth  of  the  Lambeth  Conference,  which 
is  really,  though  not  formally,  a  General  Anglican 
Council,  is  a  visible  token  of  that  expansion.  Fifty 
years  ago  it  would  have  been  thought  impossible.  Even 
at  its  first  conception,  it  was  received  with  hesitation 
and  division  of  opinion.  Now  it  has  established  itself 
as  an  indispensable  part  of  our  collective  Church  life — a 
manifestation  to  ourselves  and  to  all  men  of  emergence 
from  insularity  to  a  world-wide  extension — an  object 
lesson  on  the  combination  of  spiritual  unity  with  free- 
dom and  variety. 

V.  For,  as  has  been  seen,  this  visible  expansion  "  in 
length  and  breadth "  is,  as  usual,  closely  connected 
with  expansion  "  in  depth  and  height."  It  bids  the 
Church  go  down  deep  to  the  ultimate  foundation  in 
Christ  ;  it  bids  it  rise  to  higher  conceptions  and  hopes 
of  its  own  mission  for  Him. 

Accordingly  it  has,  on  the  one  hand,  forced  upon  us 
the  all-important  distinction  between  fundamentals,  on 
which  all  must  be  at  one,  and  the  secondary  develop- 
ment of  idea  and  practice,  in  which  variety  according  to 
various  needs  is  a  condition  of  vitality.    Unity  cannot  any 

T 


290     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

longer  be  identified,  as  perhaps  in  our  Church  it  was  too 
apt  to  be  identified,  with  uniformity.  The  claim  of  free- 
dom of  variation  within  the  necessary  limits,  put  forward 
by  our  Church  for  herself  in  the  sixteenth  century,  is  seen 
to  have  a  wide  application.  In  estimating,  moreover,  the 
essentials  of  faith  and  the  condition  of  communion,  the 
tendency  of  our  time  is  undoubtedly  towards  simplicity 
— not  the  simplicity  of  vagueness  and  superficiality,  but 
the  simplicity  of  the  deepest  and  most  definite  thought. 
If  a  Church  is  to  include  all  nations  and  characters, 
uniting  dominant  and  subject  races  in  one  brotherhood, 
reviving  old  civilisations  and  civilizing  barbarism,  it  is 
obvious  that  it  must  rest  simply  on  the  one  foundation 
of  "  Christ  as  all  in  all." 

On  the  other  hand,  this  expansion  has  necessarily 
inspired  higher  and  larger  conceptions  of  what  is  the 
mission  of  English  Christianity  to  the  world.  It  is  not 
to  be  content  with  isolation  for  itself,  still  less  to 
glory  in  it  as  a  mark  of  purity  and  superiority.  A 
world-wide  extension  must  carry  with  it  an  universal 
mission.  Nor  is  it  to  acquiesce,  contentedly  or  de- 
spondently, in  the  present  divisions  which  splinter  up 
Christianity  generally,  and  are  among  the  chief  hin- 
drances to  that  extension  of  the  Church  of  Christ  over 
the  whole  world,  of  which  the  title  "  Catholic  "  is  a 
claim  and  a  promise.  Serious  thinkers,  even  beyond 
her  pale,  have  ascribed  to  the  Church  of  England 
the  capacity,  and  therefore  the  duty,  of  a  "  ministry  of 
reconciliation."  Certainly  nothing  is  more  remarkable 
in  the  recent  proceedings  of  the  Lambeth  Conferences 
than  the  earnest  desire  to  realize  that  idea — not  only 
in  regard  to  these  divisions  in  our  English  Christianity 
itself,  which  are  its  shame  and  hindrance,  but  in  rela- 


ENGLISH    CHRISTIANITY   TO-DAY     291 

tion  to  the  divided  Churches  of  Christendom.  On 
every  side  there  is  a  reaching  out  towards  reunion. 
In  one  direction  only  is  it  barred,  because  in  that 
direction  a  wholly  different  ideal  of  Church  unity  is 
inflexibly  presented,  and  submission  to  it  imperiously 
demanded.  The  Roman  ideal  is  a  despotic  spiritual 
empire  over  all  Christendom,  driven  by  the  very  nature 
of  its  pretensions  to  claim  for  its  head  a  superhuman 
authority  and  infallibility.  The  ideal  of  the  Anglican 
Communion  is  a  free  federation  of  Churches,  under  the 
sole  headship  of  Christ  Himself,  each  having  its  own 
characteristics  and  variety  of  development,  but  all 
having  communion  with  one  another  in  Him.  The  two 
are  so  absolutely  incompatible,  that  union  between 
those  who  hold  to  them  is  practically  impossible.  But 
no  one  who  reads  the  history  of  the  past,  or  studies 
the  nature  and  progress  of  humanity,  will  doubt  with 
which  of  these  two  ideals  lies  the  greater  hope  of  the 
future. 

The  basis  of  such  federation,  even  more  truly  than 
the  basis  of  Anglicanism,  must  be  a  basis  simple  and 
deep.  For  the  reunion  of  English  Christianity  itself,  the 
Lambert  Conference  laid  down  as  a  basis  of  faith,  only 
the  acknowledgment  of  Holy  Scripture  as  the  ultimate 
standard  of  truth  ;  the  acceptance  of  the  two  Creeds, 
substantially  (Ecumenical  Creeds,  of  the  West  and  the 
East ;  the  preservation  of  the  two  great  Sacraments  as 
ordained  by  Christ  Himself ;  and  as  a  basis  of  Govern- 
ment, "the  historic  Episcopate" — that  is,  the  Episco- 
pate as  a  great,  all  but  universal,  fact,  without  insistence 
on  any  theory  of  its  origin  and  its  authority — taking 
for  granted,  moreover,  that  constitution  of  Synodical 
Government,    which   limits    Episcopal    autocracy,    and 


2  92     THE   CHURCH,  PAST   AND    PRESENT 

unites  all,  clergy  and  laity  alike,  in  the  legislation  of 
the  Church.  Of  these  the  first  three  are  simply  the 
embodiment  of  the  essence  of  Christianity  as  such.  On 
the  last,  although  it  stands  on  a  wholly  different  foot- 
ing, yet  certainly,  if  we  consider  Christendom  as  a 
whole,  depends  the  only  chance  of  anything  like 
visible  unity  between  the  Churches  of  the  world  at 
large.  After  all,  the  non-Episcopal  Christianity  of  the 
world  is  but  a  fragment,  although  a  considerable  and 
important  fragment  ;  and  for  it  the  conditions  of 
federation  might  be  simpler  than  even  the  conditions 
of  reunion.  How  far  this  ideal  of  our  Anglican 
Christianity  is  from  any  hope  of  realization  is  only  too 
obvious.  But  to  have  it  before  us,  if  it  be  indeed  a 
true  ideal,  must  exercise  an  infinitely  important  influence, 
not  only  on  the  Church  policy  of  the  future,  but  on  the 
tone  and  character  of  our  Church  in  the  present. 

VI.  To  the  progress  of  English  Christianity,  in  itself 
and  in  its  service  to  the  whole  Church  of  Christ  along 
the  lines  here  indicated,  there  are  two  main  hindrances. 
Looking  to  English  Christianity  as  a  whole,  there  is  the 
disintegration  and  confusion  caused  by  our  religious 
divisions — felt  only  too  keenly  at  home,  but  felt  even 
more  painfully  in  the  fields  of  its  expansion.  For 
divisions,  in  spite  of  the  sincerest  professions,  are  but 
too  apt  to  become  antagonisms  :  they  not  only  fritter 
away  our  spiritual  strength,  but  waste  it  by  friction. 
Moreover,  they  must  tend  to  impair  the  true  proportion 
of  the  faith.  Each  sect  comes  into  existence  in  order 
to  emphasize  some  one  element  of  Christian  doctrine  or 
order.  It  can  hardly  fail  to  make  this  emphasis  dispro- 
portionate ;  for  unhappily  under  these  conditions  the 
lesser  points  of  our  differences  are  allowed  to  obscure 


ENGLISH   CHRISTIANITY   TO-DAY     293 

the  greater  points  of  our  universal  agreement.  No 
doubt  there  is  often,  perhaps  generally,  some  happy 
forgetfulness  of  these  divisions  in  face  of  the  conflict 
against  heathenism  and  sin.  But  it  is  not  absolute  and 
universal.  The  witness  of  our  English  Christianity  is 
therefore  confused  and  discredited,  both  to  the  Church 
and  to  the  world.  If  only  these  divisions  could  be, 
wholly  or  partially,  removed — even  if  the  bitterness  of 
conflict  and  estrangement  could  be  mitigated — no  one 
can  doubt  that  the  effectiveness  of  that  witness  would 
be  multiplied  tenfold.  What  human  probability  there 
is  of  this,  who  can  tell  ?  But  at  least  it  is  right  that 
the  Church  of  England,  from  which  the  secessions  of 
these  divided  bodies  have  taken  place, — on  grounds, 
moreover,  which  in  many  cases  have  been  almost  en- 
tirely removed — should  earnestly  strive  against  such 
division  in  prayer,  and  reiterate  invitation  to  consider 
and  promote  some  measure  of  reunion. 

Looking  to  the  Church  of  England  itself,  we  find 
unfortunately  some  reproduction  within  her  own  pale 
of  these  religious  divisions — always  undermining  her 
unity  and  effectiveness  of  power — from  time  to  time 
breaking  out  into  virulence  of  conflict,  and  threatening 
actual  disruption.  But  over  and  above  these,  and 
perhaps  not  unconnected  with  them,  there  is  a  still 
greater  hindrance,  in  her  undoubted  difficulty  of 
origination,  or  even  adaptation,  to  meet  new  needs,  and 
rise  to  new  opportunities,  due  mainly  to  that  loss  of  self- 
government,  to  which  I  have  already  referred.  Perhaps 
in  any  case  a  certain  over-conservatism,  afraid  of  bold 
ventures,  distrustful  of  new  enthusiasms,  averse  to  great 
schemes  of  advance,  might  be  among  her  characteris- 
tics.    But  the  present  conditions  almost  force  that  over- 


294     THE    CHURCH,  PAST   AND   PRESENT 

conservatism  upon  the  Church  :  for  the  want  of  consti- 
tutional means  of  right  innovation  makes  it  the  best 
safeguard  against  vagary  and  error,  against  internal 
division  and  conflict.  Conservative  of  the  great  simple 
essentials  of  faith  and  order,  she  has  always  been,  and 
I  trust  always  will  be.  But  if  she  is  to  fulfil  her 
obvious  mission  of  expansion,  and  her  possible  ministry 
of  reconciliation,  at  home  and  abroad,  she  must  unite 
with  this  conservatism  of  the  old  some  greater  elasticity 
in  her  methods  of  thought  and  action,  with  a  view  to 
the  new  developments  to  which  she  is  and  will  be  called. 
Had  this  been  hers  in  the  past,  she  might  have  been 
spared  some  of  the  secessions,  which  have  withdrawn 
from  her  so  much  of  the  vital  Christianity  of  England. 
Till  it  is  made  possible  to  her  now,  it  is  certain  that  her 
advance  must  be  greatly  hampered,  and  her  witness  for 
her  characteristic  principles  must  lose  the  freshness  of 
right  adaptation  to  the  present. 

Still,  in  spite  of  these  hindrances,  it  is  hard  to  doubt 
that  there  is  a  great  future  for  English  Christianity  in 
general,  and  especially  for  it  as  represented  in  the 
Church  of  England.  The  advance  towards  it  will,  no 
doubt,  bring  out  prominently  the  characteristics  of  that 
general  advance  of  English  power  and  influence,  of 
which  it  is  a  chief  determining  and  inspiring  element. 
Its  expansion  will  have  in  it  much  of  that  natural  and 
half-unconscious  growth  which  Sir  John  Seeley  has 
traced  in  the  general  "  Expansion  of  England."  It 
will  probably  be  tentative,  partial,  gradual,  sometimes 
almost  involuntary  :  determined  at  each  moment  by 
the  force  of  practical  needs  and  opportunities,  rather 
than  by  great  preconceived  schemes  of  policy  ;  bolder, 
therefore,  in  action  than    in  origination,  and  liable  to 


ENGLISH   CHRISTIANITY   TO-DAY     295 

friction,  irregularity,  vicissitude ;  always  more  careful 
to  recognise  truths  and  principles  which  appear  to  be 
genuine,  than  to  weld  them  together  into  logical  con- 
sistency ;  inclined  accordingly,  almost  to  excess,  to 
leave  opinions  to  develop  themselves  freely,  and  to 
trust,  in  case  of  conflict,  to  natural  (or  supernatural) 
selection  for  "  the  survival  of  the  fittest."  But,  if  it  be 
faithful  to  that  harmony  of  individuality  and  unity, 
which  gives  it  vitality  and  comprehensiveness,  the 
advance  will  be  real  and  probably  continuous.  For  it 
will  be  in  accordance  with  what  must  be  the  spirit  of 
the  Christianity  of  the  future — simple  in  its  basis,  various 
in  its  superstructure,  inclusive  of  all  who  hold  firmly 
to  the  Divine  Headship  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  as 
the  secret  alike  of  individual  and  collective  life,  and 
the  supreme  reality  in  the  relation  of  the  finite  to  the 
Infinite. 


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Edinburgh  Sf  London 


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The  Church  past  and  present :  a  review 

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